SOMETIMES the Sunday tabloids are spot on months before the mainstream media, but can anyone tell me the point of stories like this?
The only purpose seems to be to elevate a convicted terrorist and give him the publicity that he so obviously craves, but the graffiti death threat daubed on a Belfast building “last week” has been there for months, possibly even years. Does anyone really expect Michael Stone to come to Belfast and clean up this graffiti?
Another baseless non-story for the silly season.
It’s unfair to single out the Sunday Life though. Every paper from the Sunday Times (a brief flirtation with Johnny Adair to rehabilitate him when he was threatening to stand for election) to the Andytown News (any IRA member, most weeks) has told us how wonderful certain ‘community activists’ are, at some point.
Are they justified? Maybe, sometimes. The truth is that we are in the hands of reporters whose judgment we have to trust. Most reporters are genuine people who care deeply about accuracy and getting things right, but there seem to be a few who have casual regard for the facts, and missed the first lesson on ‘news values’.
Or are we just expected to take stories with a pinch of salt?
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
