Crap News Reporting

Is it just me, or are journalistic standards in this country in serious decline? Take my local newspaper - any of them, I get three, two free sheets and the 'official' local paper, which has three editions a week (two paid for, one free - I only bother with the free one). They're all shit. Full of stories about duck ponds running dry in the Summer and people haranguing the council because their neighbour parks his kebab van on the street outside their house, blocking their view of yet more houses. They never go out and chase stories, they seem to think they'll just walk into the newsroom of their own accord, and when they do get a good story, they never follow it up properly. I'll give you an example. There's this argument going on about this church in a nearby village, apparently it's life expired, only open once a millenia and attended by two people and a dog. Not surprisingly, the local diocese wants to demolish it. Some of the local community object and have started a campaign to save it. If we're to believe the local press, a 'fierce' row has erupted between the local vicar (who wants it demolished) and the campaigners. So far, so standard local newspaper fare. But here's where it gets interesting. Allegedly, a notice making various unspecified allegations against the vicar was stuck on the church door - with excrement.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty unusual. Indeed, it raises all sorts of questions - most obviously, why did the poster use excrement? Did he forget to take any drawing pins or blu-tack with him? I mean, there's nothing more frustrating after you've carefully created such a document, travelling all the way to a church and then finding you've got no means of pinning it up. But then that begs another question - did take a dump specially, there and then, just to stick his notice up, or did he use a piece of dog crap he found near by? Alternatively, did he take some crap he'd 'prepared earlier' along with him for the express purpose of putting up his notice? Needless to say, the local newspaper failed to raise any of these questions, let alone try to answer them. Really, whatever happened to investigative journalism? These are vital issues which could tell us much about the state of mind of this individual. I feel that the newspaper has completely failed in its obligations to the reading public with regard to this matter. And while we're on the subject - just what were those allegations against the vicar? That he ate shit? Sadly, we'll never know, as the entire story seems to have fizzled out, the paper having lost interest. Of course, if it had bothered reporting it properly in the first place...