Monday 21 July 2014

Readers deconstruct tut-tutting headline about speed limits.

When The Province takes a cheap shot with "Coquihalla Highway fatality follows speed-limit increase" it's refreshing to see the comment section owned by readers who find the link risible. (In other news, there's hope voters will make results-based economic choices and John Q Public will use reason to assess climate claims.)  One commenter sums it up and points to a little deception by the newspaper:
"All the comments that were initially posted about this poor excuse for reporting have been taken down and the story re-posted without the comments. There's no evidence that this accident was caused by excessive speed or the long awaited upgraded speed limits. It is simply a misinformed story written with no fact to fill space."

The same story is posted at the Victoria Times Colonist where the entertaining comments deconstruct the reporter's efforts at tut-tutting. One example from "kitty": Headlines sell papers.... in related news Bird Kills Woman (a... morbidly obese woman who ate a jumbo bucket of KFC daily!)

I've rarely seen a stream of reasoned comments so at odds with the story lede. The reporter must have thought he'd win approbation.

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