Tomorrow's fish and chip wrappings, today
Discussing newspaper articles on the blog is becoming so formulaic that this dog has resorted to a form style of reporting:
An article in [insert newspaper title] published yesterday reported on [the rising diabetes epidemic / a new miracle cure / the cost to the NHS of diabetes] (delete as applicable). The reporter [confused type one and type two / didn’t realise there are different types of diabetes / was entirely misinformed] and reported that all diabetes is caused by [self-inflicted lifestyle choices / eating burgers / eating sweets / evil supermarkets / evil McDonalds].
The article then went on to note that diabetes costs the NHS [£5 billion a year / £50 billion a year / £1 zillion quintillion a year] per taxpayer and this could be remedied by [healthy eating / a tax on high fat foods (like what they’ve done in Sweden) / exercise of self-restraint by bloated, waddling diabetics].
If reporting on a cure, the article noted that [it would revolutionise diabetes care overnight / the cure was available immediately / would cost £1 zillion quintillion per year when cheap ‘non-designer’ cures were already available]. The article failed to mention that the cure [only worked on mice in limited cases / was ten years from possible fruition / had no hope of ever being used by humans].
The article concluded with a short quote from [Diabetes UK / JDRF / NHS] designed to lend gravitas but which actually contradicted everything the report had said so far by pointing out the report is [unrealistic / unfeasible / complete bollocks]. However this pseudo-disclaimer [was tucked inconspicuously at the end of the article / misquoted Diabetes UK] and so was ignored by everyone reading the article.
The diabetes community was said to be [ticked off / irritated / incandescent with rage] and was planning to [organise an online petition / write an email to the newspaper editor / leave comments at the bottom on the online edition]. It was reckoned this would have [very limited effect / no effect / completely no effect] on the accuracy of diabetes-related reporting in the future.
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