Is it me, or is there at least an article a day now appearing in a ‘serious’ national media outlet that reads just like a Daily Mash article?
It’s been creeping on for a while. Gradually, as journalists have been getting ever more comfortable with hashtags, OMGs and selfies, their reporting style has developed (some might say regressed – some, not me though) into prose sprinkled with rib tickling humour, sarcasm that’s no longer even thinly veiled and outright outlandishness.
Initially, it was the likes of the Daily Mail which adopted a Twitter strategy that converted the mainstream national into a borderline spoof paper. Tweets like “Man allowed hyena to eat his genitals because witch doctor told him it would make him rich” and “Sniffing someone's armpit could help you find love” are a couple of the more recent incidents of how a 140 character limit can distort storytelling beyond all recognition.
Of course, one could argue that Twitter is only forcing social media editors to do what news desks have had to do for centuries in headlines. And we have judicial precedent to support the notion that headlines are only half of the story (if that) and the reader must read on if they want to learn what really happened.
But that doesn’t explain this recent influx of increasingly random content. If it please the court, exhibit A: The Guardian reports on the proposed phenomenon of ‘crack squirrels’ in Brixton. The article begins, “If they are not launching themselves at you in drug-fuelled desperation, their bloodshot eyes are searching for their next fix, pink paws scrabbling in the ground.” A police spokesperson is even quoted as having “no knowledge of that at all”. Surprising, that.
Then there’s exhibit B: The Independent reports the “shocking news” that threatens to “change the face of biscuit eating forever”. Do I have a different definition of the word ‘shocking’ (perhaps even ‘news’ for that matter)? The story here is that, for all this time, we the Great British public – maybe even the world – have been labouring under the misapprehension that the chocolate side of a chocolate biscuit is the top when in actual fact it is the bottom. Lest this revelation rock the foundations of readers’ very belief systems without sufficient enquiry, The Independent did in fact contact McVitie's “in the good name of biscuity journalism”, who provided further clarification. Well, thank goodness for that.
Finally, I refer to exhibit C: Daily Mash reveals that ‘Bristol is best city because you can smoke weed in the street’. This is the story that the south west’s leading stoner enclave topped The Sunday Times’s UK city survey for having “an Amsterdam-like tolerance to pot”. Now, I know Bristol and I’ll agree, it’s pretty laid back. So, someone help me out here, which of these three stories is written by the real reporter? Where have all the serious journalists gone? Are they like all the flowers, ‘long time passing’?
It’s been creeping on for a while. Gradually, as journalists have been getting ever more comfortable with hashtags, OMGs and selfies, their reporting style has developed (some might say regressed – some, not me though) into prose sprinkled with rib tickling humour, sarcasm that’s no longer even thinly veiled and outright outlandishness.
Initially, it was the likes of the Daily Mail which adopted a Twitter strategy that converted the mainstream national into a borderline spoof paper. Tweets like “Man allowed hyena to eat his genitals because witch doctor told him it would make him rich” and “Sniffing someone's armpit could help you find love” are a couple of the more recent incidents of how a 140 character limit can distort storytelling beyond all recognition.
Of course, one could argue that Twitter is only forcing social media editors to do what news desks have had to do for centuries in headlines. And we have judicial precedent to support the notion that headlines are only half of the story (if that) and the reader must read on if they want to learn what really happened.
But that doesn’t explain this recent influx of increasingly random content. If it please the court, exhibit A: The Guardian reports on the proposed phenomenon of ‘crack squirrels’ in Brixton. The article begins, “If they are not launching themselves at you in drug-fuelled desperation, their bloodshot eyes are searching for their next fix, pink paws scrabbling in the ground.” A police spokesperson is even quoted as having “no knowledge of that at all”. Surprising, that.
Then there’s exhibit B: The Independent reports the “shocking news” that threatens to “change the face of biscuit eating forever”. Do I have a different definition of the word ‘shocking’ (perhaps even ‘news’ for that matter)? The story here is that, for all this time, we the Great British public – maybe even the world – have been labouring under the misapprehension that the chocolate side of a chocolate biscuit is the top when in actual fact it is the bottom. Lest this revelation rock the foundations of readers’ very belief systems without sufficient enquiry, The Independent did in fact contact McVitie's “in the good name of biscuity journalism”, who provided further clarification. Well, thank goodness for that.
Finally, I refer to exhibit C: Daily Mash reveals that ‘Bristol is best city because you can smoke weed in the street’. This is the story that the south west’s leading stoner enclave topped The Sunday Times’s UK city survey for having “an Amsterdam-like tolerance to pot”. Now, I know Bristol and I’ll agree, it’s pretty laid back. So, someone help me out here, which of these three stories is written by the real reporter? Where have all the serious journalists gone? Are they like all the flowers, ‘long time passing’?