Nothing New Under the Sun

Written by Will Conway on Sunday the 10th of July 2011
I don't read the news very much. Sadly I have heard of the Sun and the News of the World and all these other vitriolic printed bog rolls. They are everywhere. I'm not just talking about the physical waste paper on the buses and in the gutters, but that mental litter that is a little harder to dispose of or recycle. The ideas planted in the heads of the public are hard to shake. Although we may forget facts and figures, we build upon feelings of animosity or fear. 
At best these tabloids are mindless nonsense, promoting ignorance in an already dwindling intellectual population; watered down non-news. At worst they are seeds of hatred planted in the minds of an easily manipulated and angry mob. 
I usually try to ignore this sort of nonsense lest it get under my skin but the News of the World scandal is hard to keep away from and I have been reading about it's closure online. I found an interesting quote from a Yorkshire Post article which sums it up for me.Associate editor David Wooding, who joined the newspaper 18 months ago, said: "When I went up into the editorial floor everybody was standing around looking dazed as if a nuclear bomb had just hit. Some people are crying and they are upset”.I know you worked for News of the World but you do know what a nuclear bomb is, don't you David? They destroy cities and kill and maim people. I see what you're trying to do there, bless you. You're trying to draw a comparison aren't you? You want to say that the people in the office are emotionally affected by their globally publicised office move. Unfortunately your simile is as knee-jerk and sensationalist as everything else spouted out of that dead rag.
If this is the soggy level of description we get from an editor in the most important story of his life then I am hardly surprised they pulled the plug. "Some people are crying AND they are upset.” Wow! You've really tugged my heart strings there.
No nuclear weapons were used in the War in Iraq or Afghanistan (remember those wars you helped promote?) but countless soldiers and civilians alike were killed and injured regardless. I imagine there would have been 'crying' aplenty and very likely people being 'upset' to boot. But thank Allah we didn't use any nuclear bombs. We wouldn't want anyone in the Middle East 'standing around looking dazed'. 

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