Monday 16 December 2013

Reality Check





We live in a world dominated by 24 hour news. But how much do we really take in? Try this little pre-Christmas reality check. Below are five newsworthy events from the last few days. Award yourself two points for every story in the list that you can recall: 


Iran's space monkey returns safely to Earth.  

21 miners killed in mine explosion in China.

Ferry with 2,000 passengers aground between Sweden and Finland. 

13 wedding guests killed by US drone in Yemen. 

Tokyo shaken by strong 5.5 earthquake.


9 comments:

  1. I only ever remember football results these days.

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  2. Oh dear. I'd better not mention the Arsenal-Man City score then.

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  3. Oh dear Gwil, I only remembered one and that was the Yemen one - I am ashamed. I think we are so saturated with news that it just doesn't stick.

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  4. There's no escaping it Pat. Waiting for the U-bahn train we stare at the tunnel wall of televised news on the giant screens, that is if we are not busy thumbing through the two free 'news'papers, the Heute (Today) and the Österreich (Austria) they gave us when we entered the station or we picked up from the dispenser bins on every corner . . .

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  5. . . . it's almost as if they are telling us what we should be thinking

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  6. Zero -but then I haven't been paying much attention.

    It's a good point you make. I would add - (a) I've heard it said people watch the news for what it doesn't say more than for what it does and (b) even if one does pay attention, what makes it through to "news" programmes is an extremely limited view of what goes on around us. You only have to check out foreign news services' English services to see this.

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  7. Dominic you are correct on both counts. Of course a couple of times a week when I want to read the uncensored non-approved and unfiltered news I use the internet. I expect you do too.

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  8. The BBC devoted a full five hours live covergae on three channels to Mandella's funeral - nothing else happened in the world while that was going on.

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  9. The world stood still that day. It was one of those famous newsless days. Today in passing they announced on the Beeb that the SAS didn't murder Diana. So it seems we are now back to normal.

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