Excellent article

I just feel it needs pointing out that Metro UK is an offshoot of The Daily Mail.

I'm a big fan of media responsibility but this guy has sensationalized his own article to attack the media.

My comment was left for the writer to view. I'll repost it here.

I wonder at your own motivations in condemning the 'Corporate' media. You denounce the sources as being unbiased, but what can the source be? Reporters don't have access to the bomb site, the DNA, the firsthand witnesses that the Army does. What does the 'Corporate' media benefit from this type of story? Selling more papers?

Do you actually believe that John Smith would pass over a newspaper unless it had a headline like 'Girl of 8 used..'?

And why do we need a bombsquad to tell us the girl was young and had explosives strapped to herself? There are eyewitnesses, there are cameras, it doesn't take an exhaustive search of her dental records with her school records and DOB to see the facts...

A person was strapped with explosives and sent to kill others with themselves. That person was a young female. The people who sent her to do this are alive and well and still sending more people out to die for them.

Cowards.

Interesting article.

I personally despise sensationalist articles (and headlines), almost to the point where I won't read an article if it has a very inflammatory headline. Maybe it's because I'm a scientist, but I won't believe what I read unless it's backed up with solid facts.

The media making up stories is nothing new, but the strong ties between the media and its political influence is rather scary.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Also: Let me assure you that no reasonable editor puts anything in a headline to "sneeringly confirm" anything to the consumers. A word would be put in quotes if someone else called the girl a suicide bomber — not the media. And because of the situation, they are acknowledging that an 8-year-old may not qualify as the typical suicide bomber; she probably wouldn't have done it on her own.


It is still very hard for a journalist to return to the business after having gone to PR. It's like going traitor to the wider ideals, particularly to move from PR to journalist covering the place you formerly advocated. Also, no journalist worth his/her salt is going to take a political office while acting as a journalist — and if they do, they probably will never make the switch back to journalist. We value our credibility far more than that — it's almost all we have. Things like this are not done.

There are a lot of things wrong with the media, I give you that, absolutely. But this guy is nitpicking the wrong things. And he wouldn't get *any* coverage of events like this if it weren't for the mainstream media. I promise you, without the press, we'd have far far more worse things withheld from us by the powers that be.