My local news paper has reached a new low in my opinion ratings.
It has never been that high, to be honest.
At lunchtime I had a phone call from Mrs RC. She had just got a copy of the paper and was so astonished at the front page story that she just had to tell me about it. After our conversation I went and bought a copy so that I could read it while at lunch.
The story?
A person from the next street to us was complaining that she is being victimized by the neighbours. She has had her windows smashed, her children threatened, her garden firebombed.
Bad, huh?
Well it would be, except that the windows were actually smashed by her own son. Far from being threatened, her son is always at the centre of any local trouble, being one of a gang that attacked my eldest son a few years ago. The firebomb in the garden? That would be the time that they had a bonfire and someone threw an aerosol can on it. The story somehow managed to miss the fact that this house is the centre for almost all local crime and drug dealing, and is the hang out for the local thugs. The rest of us are worried about our own kids because of the people in this house!
Mrs RC is wanting to do something to set the record straight - just needs to work out the best way of doing it. Right now we are just amazed that such a badly researched story could be published like this.
7 comments:
It takes work to actually do research on this...maybe something difficult like a phonecall to the local police...
Letter to the editor, a phonecall to the editor. Just start picketing until a news organization takes notice.
An anonymous letter to the editor, inviting the paper to revisit this story, maybe?
The local rags tend to favor one side or the other at times. IMHO, they always tend to overstate or exaggerate the story to make it more interesting. Death, tragedy & sex sell papers.
I agree that several anonymous letters to the editor might not get them to change their story, but at least it will get your side of the story out.
That's always the way with trouble makers. They like to make out that they're the victims. I had similar problems with my old neighbours. One of them was an old battle-axe that stirred it big time and always got sympathy because of her age. Believe it or not, she made my life hell. That's the main reason I had to move. Couldn't take it anymore that most people believed her, apart from the ones like me who she drove out too.
Sparky - No sign of that!
wigsf - This is the way we are thinking - complain to the editor.
Terri - Hm, Mrs RC is never one to do things anonymously...
agg79 - I think this is the motivation - up the circulation!
Marie - I hate the way some think that old people can't be evil and vindictive! I guess if the Angel of Auschwitz was still alive she would be a lovely old lady baking cakes at the WI!
That is crazy - I often wonder about just how much in the news is published without proper research....
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