I read the news today, oh boy

[venta]

As Noddy Holder once said "It's Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistmas". Which means that even if you're in work, you're quite possibly not doing any. Therefore, I propose a game.

A prize to the best bit of non-news found on the BBC news website today.

What do I mean by non-news ?

Well, I don't mean a story that isn't very interesting or "newsworthy". I usually mean a poorly phrased or badly thought-out sentence which states the blindingly obvious.

This problem was originally drawn to my attention by onebyone in March this year. The BBC headline (at the time) on a breaking story about an axe attack was "Man Dies After Being Beheaded". As Onebyone pointed out, "Of course he fucking did. That's not news.".

The most recent example I saw was in the story about the death penalty finally being carried out on Stanley Tookie Williams. The BBC report tells us that journalists said "the mood in the execution chamber was sombre". Well... yes.

So, please report here (with link!) any sentences/headlines/stories on the BBC which you feel to be qualifying non-news. If possible, please keep a screenshot as the BBC has a habit of maliciously changing the stories subtly throughout the day.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes thanks - I was reading a little of it at work today. Thought I'd better stop before my boss got wise, though.

Actually, I'm quite pro writing maintainable code so it was useful as an entertaining list of things not to do!

[erming.livejournal.com]

That was my take on it too.

It was a good read though and filled a bit of time.