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Is the press treating its readers with contempt? WHICH
story is more important a missing cat or 78 people killed in Baghdad?
No contest I hear you say. It’s obviously the tragic and pointless
deaths of 78 innocent people.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again as far as the newspapers are concerned.
A couple of weeks ago Jemima Khan’s cat disappeared from her London
home and warranted the attention of no less than two yes, two Metropolitan
policewomen.
The story was deemed to merit a separate full page in the newspaper
together with photographs of Jemima Khan and her on-off boyfriend the
actor Hugh Grant plus the two attending officers.
The only photograph missing was the cats (because they were, well…
missing).
Newspapers and the police seem to have a weird and wildly distorted
sense of what is and what is not important.
What does it say about us the readers and how the newspapers view us?
Is this the kind of nonsense the papers think we really can’t wait
to read?
The butchery of 78 people and wounding of another 200 when a bomb was
exploded in a Shiite mosque in Baghdad was relegated to the bottom of
the next page.
You really do begin to wonder. Do they think we are just bored with war
statistics and no longer find it of any great interest?
Are they right to treat us with such contempt?
Perhaps we get the newspapers we deserve just as we get the police service
we deserve.
If you are the victim of a burglary the police probably won’t be
interested but will no doubt readily give you a crime reference number
to enable you to claim on your insurance.
They seem to have the strangest sense of priority.
My only suggestion is that if you are unfortunate enough to be the victim
of a burglary do of course call the police because you do need the reference
for the insurers.
However, whatever you do please don’t mention the robbery. Tell
them instead that your favourite moggy has gone AWOL and you are distraught.
When they do appear you can then explain about the burglary but be warned
they might insist on charging you with wasting valuable police time.
As somebody once said to me: “There are probably more brains in
a tin of cat food.”
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