Strangest Newspaper Clarification of the Year sadly isn’t a category at today’s Regional Press Awards.
But if it was, then this would surely win it.
A story on the Plymouth Herald’s website, accompanied by the tasteful illustration shown above, reported that scientists at Exeter University had found that the gas found in flatulence could help people with diabetes, stroke, heart attacks and dementia.
It was also accompanied by a poll asking readers whether they had ever broken wind in front of their partner – 83pc said yes – and links to related stories such as ‘Beards may contain more poo than a toilet’ and ‘Study reveals almost all burgers have poo in them.’
However, a footnote at the bottom of the piece reveals that the Herald’s initial version of the tale may have struck something of a bum note.
It read: “The story originally stated that sniffing farts is good for you and helps you live longer. The Herald is happy to make clear that the research in question has not found that to be the case.”
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Speechless. If someone who loved the newspaper industry went to hell and was sat there drinking coffee in the waiting room, this is what’d be on the table.
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Or even sitting, of course…
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The latest example, of many, showing how the internet has eroded good taste and judgment in local newspapers. With the current crop of posh graduate trainees producing similar brainless click-bait stuff, the end is even ‘nigher’ for local rags than I feared.
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Has anyone sent this to the Pulitzer judges?
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It’s not a Friday “funny” it’s a bloody disgrace.
My old editor will be spinning in his grave.
What the hell have we come to?
There’s so many clueless jerks destroying what’s left of local newspapers’ integrity – all for the sake of pointless website “hits” – that it’s a wonder we have any readers left at all.
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1.The story is not factual.
2.It is tasteless
3.It is trivial beyond triviality.
4. It is not funny unless you are five years old.
I am glad I don’t don’t insult my and everyone else’s intelligence by making a living with this rubbish.
Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to take a long hard look at himself or herself and ask what they want out of the job.
Or maybe I just don’t have a modern sense of humour?
By the way, the picture was well done. Was it sent in?
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The Old Guard is out in force here, huffing and puffing and failing to blow any houses down. I find this page to be firmly in the comic vein of the late, great Alan Coren; Clive James’s TV criticism; and hilarious US columnist Sid Perelman, whose brilliance enlivened The New Yorker for so long. Jeff Jones, bluestringer, and their ilk are notorious curmudgeons, out of tune with modern media studies graduates’ wry take on life, forged in the white heat of social cauldrons such as Harrogate and Henley on Thames. To the Activities Room with you, gentlemen, and take your milky Horlicks with you.
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Desperate – then on another thread you’ve got Keith Harrison urging us all to maintain the standards we’ve had for hundreds of years and embrace the challenges of new media. If this is an example of maintaining standards I’d rather embrace a hugely annoyed cobra.
Beyond pitiful.
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I feel sorry for the model and doubt she ever thought her picture would be (mis) used for something as feeble-minded as this.
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I thought it was BRILLIANT. More, even more and please more of these stories.
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One thing the newspaper industry hasn’t grasped even though it’s now too late, is that it takes years to build credibility and only a second to lose it.
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I don’t think it’s funny at all as the scientists behind this work have been unfairly treated and ridiculed. Even though the Herald didn’t even bother to state where the studies were published, or contact the authors, the links are here http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/MD/C3MD00323J#!divAbstract and here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24755204 and from 2014.
Old guard or not, it’s not too difficult to see that the words fart, smell and sniff, do not appear. I believe the Herald’s original headline even went as far as stating that sniffing farts more often prolongs life. Interestingly John Oliver’s HBO show had something on this and science reporting in the media in general a couple of weeks ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA2j9G69dak – this study at 6 min 53 secs.
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Weak material and we’re all going to hell – but it made me half smile briefly.
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Just too cretinous for words
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Dick Minim. You sly old dog. I get your irony. It had me in creases.
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Dick Minim: I’ve been waiting in the Activities Room with my milky Horlicks for ages. It’s gone cold. Where are you?
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It’s just a load of crap!
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