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News You Can Set Your Watch By

Started by ozziechef, September 05, 2007, 11:41:34 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

ozziechef

Recently I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time on BBC News and reading newspapers and I'm amazed the amount of stories that are recycled year after year. We've all seen them, normally in the run up to an event - Christmas or the summer or New Year.



Examples I can think of are:

1. Turkey Shortage - A story explaining why there's an imminent turkey crisis at Christmas, usually caused by Bird Flu or the weather

2. The Summer will be the hottest ever - In about February (in the grip of snow) a long term weather forecaster will release a forecast for the summer to say we will all be basking in 40 degree heat for the whole of August. We inevitably won't be

3. January 24th will be the day most people have off work - on January 24th a story will appear about how it is the day that most people will ring off sick. having seen this story, most people won't phone in sick.

4. England will win the next World Cup / European Championship says Pele - Braillian star pele will announce in an exclusive interview, England will win whatever tournament they are about to enter. They won't.

5. Traffic Chaos will hit over the August Bank Holiday - Rail works, road works, airport delays will hit millions who are going on holiday. Everyone's awarre and it's never as bad as expected (in fact a man will appear at 12 noon on the Friday before on ITV news from the RAC Control centre by the M6 to say that the expected chaos hasn't started yet and it is just slightly busy).

Any other stories you're bored of hearing? Is it time the newspaper stop filling pages with recycled bobbins? Is it ust the metro that seems bad at doing this?

Chutney

"And here we are with a very nervous Jennifer Handpicked at Smart Middle Class High School for the big moment as she opens her GCSE results.

Well, fuck me!  They're all A grades."

Also anything which happens to be the focus of a BBC documentary that evening will be a lead story on all BBC news broadcasts earlier in the day, even though if it was really news they wouldn't have sat on the story for the entire time between filming and broadcasting the programme.

spraticus

terror alerts leading up to 11th September etc.

Al Tha Funkee Homosapien

In the lead up to Christmas retailers will announce that they are worried about people not spending enough money in their stores. Then after Christmas they will announce that it was their busiest Christmas EVAR!


t_kingpin

Quote from: Chutney on September 05, 2007, 11:53:32 AM
"And here we are with a very nervous Jennifer Handpicked at Smart Middle Class High School for the big moment as she opens her GCSE results.

Well, fuck me!  They're all A grades."

Excellent. Very funny..

Artemis

I can't think of any hilarious examples right now but it is very true that stories, or more accurately, themes crop up with tedious regularity in the news. Most of them contribute to a very warped sense of reality where things are bad and getting worse and we're powerless to do anything about it. It's a self-sustaining reality designed to self papers, keep us all worried and anxious and sadly, it all too often works.

I still find myself in dillema about the news; recognising that probably the best thing I can do is never read a paper again, and stop watching the news; the things we're encouraged to be concerned about either don't happen or would come and go regardless of the concern we waste our emotional energy on. That said, there's an element to which I think it's important to be aware of what's happening in our world. ...... actually, I don't think I do, I think I just probably find it hard to let go and be brave enough to be without opinion on the things we're all supposed to have opinions about.

Beil

The London Metro's favourite story is how the internet is going to be shut down by viruses and things.  They do it at least a couple of times a year.

They'll also always set aside the front page for any stories of people coming into money they haven't earned - court settlements, lottery wins etc. - presumably to give miserable office workers something to tut about.

Quote from: Me, making it up, but something along these lines seems to appear every year
The London Ambulance service revealed today some of the so-called "Emergency" calls they received over the festive period.  These included a man who couldn't find his trousers, a woman with a broken finger nail and someone urgently needing a good recipe for left-over turkey.

The Argus

The day after A-level results come out there are always columnists barking about how they're getting easier.  Every year.  Without fail.

Analrapist

At Christmas in The Sun an anonymous prison officer will complain that the lags will be eating better than him on Xmas Day.

alan nagsworth

Quote from: The Argus on September 05, 2007, 03:02:13 PM
The day after A-level results come out there are always columnists barking about how they're getting easier.  Every year.  Without fail.

Yeah, easy GCSEs, cancelling the SATS for 10 year olds, beautiful people getting beautiful grades...

War veterans getting pardoned after death for being shot for disobedience.

And that girl, what's-her-face McCannes or whatever, going missing or something. Oh, what's her name... somehow the constant media attention has had the reverse effect on me, I can't remember her name!

Santa's Boyfriend

I'm convinced that journos go on holiday the day the GCSEs and A levels come out - it's been the same basic story for about 20 years now.

lordaxil

Quote from: Santa's Boyfriend on September 05, 2007, 05:13:24 PM
I'm convinced that journos go on holiday the day the GCSEs and A levels come out - it's been the same basic story for about 20 years now.

Perhaps this is why...



source

Gulftastic

More of a local newspaper story, but the family having all their Xmas presents nicked is always a hardy perennial.

It's even better if it's accompanied by my favourite local newspaper thing of all, the 'looking sad' photo.

Chutney

And of course at every single flood ever, the cunt in a canoe...

Blue Jam

A spate of stabbings or shootings, reported as if it's a growing epidemic of violence when really the stabbing/shooting rate hasn't gone up and loads of previous murders just didn't receive as much coverage.

Every few weeks the Independent can be guaranteed to print a picture of a piece of asparagus wrapped in plastic with "THIS IS AN OUTRAGE" or word to that effect under it. It used to be such a good paper, now it's the eco Daily Mail

falafel

God yes, I'm hugely disappointed in the Independent these days... there was a fantastic example of its increasing worthlessness a few months ago. The day after Blair singled the paper out for being editorial and reactionary, they responded with... a rather piqued front page editorial. Presumably they thought they were to be applauded for giving up space that could have been more valuably taken up by, say, photographs of American soldiers raping the corpses of Iraqi children, or an exclusive on the carbon footprint of Vladimir Putin's new crude-oil swimming pool.

Seriously, in the course of the five years since I started at university, it's gone from smart to shite with nary a look back.

Quote from: Gulftastic on September 05, 2007, 06:02:12 PM
More of a local newspaper story, but the family having all their Xmas presents nicked is always a hardy perennial.

It's even better if it's accompanied by my favourite local newspaper thing of all, the 'looking sad' photo.

Tch, that happened to my family, but the cunts dumped everything on the railway by our house when they realised it was all children's stuff.  Got most of it back though, but the packaging was VERY soggy on my playmobil pirate island.  No story in the papers either, and the police got pissed at our house.

buttgammon

Quote from: falafel on September 05, 2007, 07:23:29 PM
God yes, I'm hugely disappointed in the Independent these days... there was a fantastic example of its increasing worthlessness a few months ago. The day after Blair singled the paper out for being editorial and reactionary, they responded with... a rather piqued front page editorial. Presumably they thought they were to be applauded for giving up space that could have been more valuably taken up by, say, photographs of American soldiers raping the corpses of Iraqi children, or an exclusive on the carbon footprint of Vladimir Putin's new crude-oil swimming pool.

Seriously, in the course of the five years since I started at university, it's gone from smart to shite with nary a look back.

I stopped buying it altogether a few weeks ago. It seems that everything in it is either global warming or fashion. It was once the best paper around but it's gone rubbish lately.

Blue Jam

Private Eye printed a good little observation about the Independent- the first time they ran one of those front pages on the horrors of excessive packaging, the paper had also been stuffed with inserts and leaflets. They should just relaunch as an online, paperless newspaper, or get off their arses and start printing some proper news.

There's loads of stuff on fashion in there too, you're right falafel. If this steady drop in quality goes on it'll become about as readable as the Sun.

Tokyo Sexwhale

Kids with Everton shirts being on the front pages.

Blue Jam

Kids in any football shirts being on the front pages, be they single boys in Everton shirts or a pair of girls in Scumchester United ones. Murdered kids love their football.

quadraspazzed

In Ireland, some mad cunts jumping into the sea on New Year's Day for charity.

Cunts.

chand

It's the international football break and England are looking a bit ropey, which can only mean one thing:nasty, cheap, talented forrins are stopping all our hot footballing prospects from getting the chance to prove how mediocre they are every single week! Complete with apparently argument-proving graphs which show how many more foreigners we have in the top flight now compared to the halcyon days of, er, 1992, when England swept all before them, with that dazzling Sinton/Curle/Daley/Palmer/Woods side that gave us the confidence to move on to our legendary 1994 World Cup campaign.

Around this time of year we always get a story about how some high street shop or other is starting its Christmas campaign, leading to editorials about how Christmas is getting so over-exposed. Stories which are later contradicted nearer Christmas by articles claiming that Christmas is actually being 'banned' by much the same kind of stores, backed by an unholy alliance of atheists, liberals, Muslims, thought police and other forms of killjoy.

Viero_Berlotti

Quote from: chand on September 05, 2007, 10:15:05 PM
It's the international football break and England are looking a bit ropey, which can only mean one thing:nasty, cheap, talented forrins are stopping all our hot footballing prospects from getting the chance to prove how mediocre they are every single week! Complete with apparently argument-proving graphs which show how many more foreigners we have in the top flight now compared to the halcyon days of, er, 1992, when England swept all before them, with that dazzling Sinton/Curle/Daley/Palmer/Woods side that gave us the confidence to move on to our legendary 1994 World Cup campaign.

It's Trevor Brooking that seems to be the major figure behind this school of thought. Why doesn't he just nail his colours to the mast and run for the BNP or the NF in the next general election? Those parties stand for repatriation so surely they'd solve the problems eh Trev? Thinking about it, I imagine Brooking would quite suit an SS uniform don't you think?



Small Man Big Horse

Every time it rains at Glastonbury they'll show footage of a couple of blokes covered in head to toe in mud, and go on about the Dunkirk spirit and how everyone's still having a great time, without ever showing the fifty odd thousand people who are actually really pissed off about it.

Blue Jam

They will also show a picture of Kate Moss, not covered in mud.

Derek Trucks

When the clocks go back it's always 'Should the clocks go back?  Kids are getting run over late afternoon oh but then there's Scottish farmers needing light in the morning well I guess we don't know the answer'

rudi

Jonny Wilkinson is injured!

Apparently that's news.