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The Truth Behind The Newcastle United Headlines Revealed

11 years ago
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Life was so much easier before the internet.

At least then you had a fair idea that whatever you read in the paper was true, because if it wasn’t it could be traced back to the journalist who either ended up in court being sued for libel, or was dragged behind a factory and given his plums to wear as earrings.

The Good Old (Media) Days…

That pretty much upheld the integrity of the nation’s newspapers.

(To feature like Archie on the website/magazine, send in your letters/articles to contribute@themag.co.uk)

The advent of the internet has given us access to a wealth of information, the only problem being that these days we can’t tell what is true and what is not.

I got a call from my wife last week telling me that she had just read that Jackie Chan had died filming a movie. Apparently he got one of his big action stunts wrong.

I’d guess no one was more surprised to hear that than Mr Chan himself, who is obviously alive and well. The ironic part of this story was that he had died after ‘perfecting a deadly stunt’. I mean what is that even supposed to mean?

So apart from the blatantly ridiculous being identified as an ‘honest person’ by relatives of dead dictators with millions of dollars to distribute, or people dying without being informed, or, and this is my favourite, receiving blessings from God if we forward an email to 15 friends within the next 30 minutes, if we really want to believe what we read we now have to cross-check everything to see if it really is fact, or just the ramblings of a 12 year old reporter’s overactive thyroid.

Looking through other sites’ articles (yes – we still have to have a laugh!) it’s interesting to see that some sites can clearly be identified as ‘tabloid’ in nature, by their complete disregard for accuracy, and the way they never let the truth to get in the way of rewriting history.

There are a couple of sites that I just flatly refuse to visit any more.  They tempt you there with the promise of a scandalous tale involving  your favourite midfielder and like a rather excitable puppy…but when you get there you are invariably, if somewhat perversely, disappointed.

Here are a few of today’s off the mark reports;

Pardew Says Kinnear Is Not Director Of Football

(of course he said no such thing!)

Kinnear Sold Perch – Not Pardew!

(apparently Perch asked to leave)

Why I had to sell Perch! – Pardew

(maybe he also asked Pards if he could leave)

Goalkeeper a Pardew Priority?

(the question mark doesn’t excuse the inaccuracy)

Pardew Reveals the Strikers Topping his Summer Wish list.

(at no time did he say where they were on his list)

Newcastle To Offer Taylor Plus Cash For Remy

(I reckon even Shola  could have been closer to the target than this)

Each of the above headlines has at its heart, a pretty basic untruth that was added by the writer purely to spice up the story and garner your interest at the expense of accuracy.

It was simply dressed up to get you to the site and ramp up another digit on the hit counter. Of course, if they are daft enough to believe that having been conned we’ll keep going back, then it’s hardly likely that they realize that those couple of hits today have lost them significant traffic tomorrow.

That is of course assuming that we are bright enough to realize that we are being conned.

Everything taken into consideration, I suppose it would be unrealistic to expect the truth in every report.

I mean what chance do you have if you are quoting Kinnear?

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