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Stupid, yes - but is it really newsworthy?

Posted: 02 Aug 2006, 10:46
by AndyG
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sout ... 236590.stm

I saw this halfway through the 6 o'clock news last night. Is it just me, or is this just the usual case of the media making something out of nothing? Yes, the kids were stupid; so kids do stupid things, is that news? The whole bulletin last night was "they could have been seriously injured, or even killed"; they weren't, so why publicise it and make it look like a cool thing to do for other people? :dunno:

AndyG

Posted: 02 Aug 2006, 11:12
by Garry Russell
I just find now days the News has lost the plot.

Always trying to tell us what might happen and if it has why the reasons might be instead of telling what has happenend and why.

Too much speculation and too loong on 'pet' stories.

Garry

Posted: 02 Aug 2006, 11:35
by cstorey
It is indeed a stupid prank, and I can see the justification for alerting parents to the danger. If you read it closely, however, I doubt whether it was really terribly dangerous, since the girls were crouching at the centre, and thus although their angular velocity might be high, they were not travelling at 20 mph or anything like it ( unless of course they stood up and went to the periphery) and nor would the centrifugal force be high . In reality, it is probably no more dangerous than a treadmill

Posted: 02 Aug 2006, 11:52
by AndyG
Precisely! The wonderful British media is spending so much time trying to demonise their pet group of the day that they seem to have missed the fact that there is a real world out there. Another classic example - on Monday all of the papers, quite rightly, had the terrible events from Lebanon on the front page; well, nearly all, because the Daily Express needed to have a whinge about something else (can't remember what, probably Tony Blair wearing a hoodie making love to George Dubya). :doh:

Perspective people, please let's get some perspective.

AndyG

(Gets of his soapbox and slinks away):whistle: