Mike Bristow wrote:
In article .com,
MIG wrote:
Strange that there would be a cover-up over something so
public.

But not particularly strange that they would cock up a report
on something so trivial.


Blimey, how newsworthy do you suppose Lewisham normally is? What would
be big enough to report accurately?

How does one know whether it was trivial, based on only a totally wrong
report? A multiple vehicle incident, spread over a wide area, at a far
busier time than the report claimed (no later than 2100), resulting in
at least one building being left in an unsafe state* is not THAT
trivial. Should at least get proper local coverage.

If it was a train, it would be national news.


*I now know.

In article . com,
MIG wrote:
Blimey, how newsworthy do you suppose Lewisham normally is? What would
be big enough to report accurately?

7/7? Oh, no, they got that one wrong, at least in part, too.

Journalists seem to be more interested in getting /something/ out
than in getting something accurate out - (with a few notable
exceptions).

--
RIP Morph (1977-2005)

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 08:11:35 +0000 (UTC), Mike Bristow
wrote:

Journalists seem to be more interested in getting /something/ out
than in getting something accurate out - (with a few notable
exceptions).

When something YOU did was last reported in the paper, did they get
your name/age/sex/address/what you actually did/everything else wrong?
Not all of those? Unusual.

And people take the Bible literally :-)

In article . com,
MIG wrote:

Mike Bristow wrote:
Journalists seem to be more interested in getting /something/ out
than in getting something accurate out - (with a few notable
exceptions).

Yeah fair enough, but the News Shopper is just a local paper.

With a staff of two trainees gathering news (and 200 selling adverts).

It
hasn't got a lot else to report on, if they're aware of it. They must
have been deliberately fed the wrong facts by someone.

Deliberately? No room for cockup? No room for honest mistake? No room
for misunderstanding?

That is, in their office someone phones the police and says "can you
tell us why there's a hole in a building and bits of bus lying
around?".

And the police PR department asks the super, and the super asks the
sergent, and the sergent asks the poor sods on the ground, and the
poor sods on the ground tell the sergent, who tells the super, who
tells the PR department, who tell the local rag. And you really,
really, really think that the above is a recipe for 100% accurate
reporting? Even if all the parties have no time pressure (in the
police? hah!), are competent and diligent in the performance
of their duties (in the street of shame? hah!).

Still, you'll have no shortage of dance partners (provided you
bring three and fourpence).

--
RIP Morph (1977-2005)

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 08:11:35 +0000 (UTC), Mike Bristow
wrote:

Journalists seem to be more interested in getting /something/ out
than in getting something accurate out - (with a few notable
exceptions).

When something YOU did was last reported in the paper, did they get
your name/age/sex/address/what you actually did/everything else wrong?
Not all of those? Unusual.

And people take the Bible literally :-)


It's true that although I've got a lot of information about the world
from newspapers, every time they report on a story I know something
about, it's wrong.

But in this case I still don't get it. Something happens mid-evening.
How does any kind of honest mistake convert that into the early hours?
It's not a typo. It's not a story about an issue that the journalists
don't understand (the usual reason for everything being wrong). It's
just a lie, either to or by the paper.

But in this case I still don't get it. Something happens mid-evening.
How does any kind of honest mistake convert that into the early hours?

One kind of honest mistake that could do that would be that person A
states the time when the emergency services (or the crashed vehicles)
*left* the scene, and person B, who hadn't heard about the accident
until after it was all over, thinks A is talking about the time of the
accident.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Information! ... We want information!"
-- The Prisoner

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:23:19 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:

One kind of honest mistake that could do that would be that person A
states the time when the emergency services (or the crashed vehicles)
*left* the scene, and person B, who hadn't heard about the accident
until after it was all over, thinks A is talking about the time of the
accident.

No! It was criminal stupidity or, better still, a conspiracy. This
IS the Internet, remember :-)

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:23:19 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:

One kind of honest mistake that could do that would be that person A
states the time when the emergency services (or the crashed vehicles)
*left* the scene, and person B, who hadn't heard about the accident
until after it was all over, thinks A is talking about the time of the
accident.

No! It was criminal stupidity or, better still, a conspiracy. This
IS the Internet, remember :-)


Hmm. And you are obviously a tool of this conspiracy, using ridicule
to prevent discussion.

But it is still reasonable to be surprised that probably the only thing
to have happened in that area for months wasn't reported (except
trivially and wrongly). It's possible to be surprised without
subscribing to any particular theory.

On 25 Jan 2006 00:05:02 -0800, "MIG"
wrote:


No! It was criminal stupidity or, better still, a conspiracy. This
IS the Internet, remember :-)


Hmm. And you are obviously a tool of this conspiracy, using ridicule
to prevent discussion.

I'm sorry. I shall have to terminate your Internet account forthwith.
Possible I shall have to kill you.

Laurence Payne wrote:
On 25 Jan 2006 00:05:02 -0800, "MIG"
wrote:


No! It was criminal stupidity or, better still, a conspiracy. This
IS the Internet, remember :-)


Hmm. And you are obviously a tool of this conspiracy, using ridicule
to prevent discussion.

I'm sorry. I shall have to terminate your Internet account forthwith.
Possible I shall have to kill you.


Please have my credit card details.