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Missing news story

K

KarlD

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jun 6, 2009
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I was up early this morning about 5.30 ish getting ready to go to work and listening to the radio and I just managed to catch the end of the local news where they had a story about large parts of Southampton being cordoned off due to a bomb scare. So I thought I would have a look on t'interweb and see what it was all about and I couldn't find anything, I listened to the next hourly news on the radio and nothing was said about it.
I thought it was all very odd, I am sure I didn't imagine it but as I am about to go and drive through Southampton on my way to work I am sure all will be revealed or not.
 
I've often been fascinated by the rise and fall of news items in the media.

In one of the HHGTTG novels, Douglas Adams had a character commenting on the disappearance of all the dolphins a few years before and it basically stated that it was a non-story story. They couldn't very well run a piece "Dolphins still missing".

This is curious because this is exactly the opposite of what happened with Madeline McCann. For most of the first year she was a constant news item. Why? I don't know. There were plenty of other children who went missing before and after her, but something about her story was deemed worth running for ages.

This stood out against a story I was tracking long before the internet, of an anomalous sighting off the East coast. It was mentioned repeatedly over 3-4 days by BBC ceefax news (I painstakingly wrote down each page, as there was no other way of archiving it). A few months ago I found these notes, and a lot of googling showed no reports online about it. Nothing here, nothing on usenet, nada.

Did I dream it all up? Have I somehow found notes i wrote in fiction and mentally jumped a rail and filled in a back story making it fact in memory alone?

Perhaps, perhaps not.

I'll be interested to see whether you find proof of your recollection or not. My money is on not, but I'd happily believe that you heard it in the first place.

I was about to quote from Neil Gaiman, who I'm fairly sure said (about the library of Alexandria) that it is rather difficult to prove something once all proof had been deliberately or accidentally destroyed.

Now, is it my memory being fallible again?

Possibly. However i swear on all that is Buzz, that I saw it on wiki within the last two months. Sadly, though, there have been so many edits i cannot find the quote, and therefore the reference.

Anyone else fancy a go?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... on=history
 
It does happen

Its almost as if a story gets pulled when its deemed unsuitable.
I have sent an email to the radio station in the hope that they can either confirm or deny broadcasting the news item.

Its not the first time its happend, like you I have seen news items which never reappear and I suppose that everyone knows about the imfamous D notices which can be used to stop newspapers from printing a story.
 
Another explanation is when news agencies, in desperate competition to provide up-to-the-second information in the media, to go off half-cocked with "news" items, only to find it in error - either by inaccuracy or outright misinformation. Rather than admit that "an earlier report was found to be in error", they'd rather ignore it. Doesn't do to look stupid!

I've noted that some news items become airbrushed over, not because of an official blackout but because a lazy researcher sent a reporter out only for that reporter to phone back saying "it was a false alarm/hoax/idiotic rumour".

I'm not saying that some items are pulled due to political/security sensitivity but in this age of 24/7 media coverage, screw-ups happen more often than "D" Notices.
 
Or that some shadowy government spook phones them up and demands a press black out for whatever reason.
 
Oddly enough I was doing a search for the latest on Ian Tomlinson and the aftermath of that day at G20. There's virtually nothing after mid April. This story seems to have been completely forgotten.
 
There's an interesting site about d-notices here.

I heard a while ago that they were less common than they used to be, because the easy availability of material means it is likely to become known in some way or other.

I guess if something is restricted they can still say "this story has been restricted under government order". Unless the notices themselves are also subject to them.

I would imagine it would be easier for the Government to say "we'll remove your special access" as a way of controlling journalists anyhow.
 
Stormkhan said:
Another explanation is when news agencies, in desperate competition to provide up-to-the-second information in the media, to go off half-cocked with "news" items, only to find it in error - either by inaccuracy or outright misinformation. Rather than admit that "an earlier report was found to be in error", they'd rather ignore it. Doesn't do to look stupid!

I've noted that some news items become airbrushed over, not because of an official blackout but because a lazy researcher sent a reporter out only for that reporter to phone back saying "it was a false alarm/hoax/idiotic rumour".
Click to expand...

I highly recommend the book Flat Earth News by journalist Nick Davies. He makes a pretty good case that the news works in more or less exactly the way you describe. As with most things in life, the root cause is the pursuit of money rather than conspiracy or ideological conviction on the part of the owner (a point I don't fully agree with myself).
Cost-cutting leads to less well-trained/experienced staff who, due to 24 hour rolling news and the internetz have more time/column inches to fill and this means a tendency to publish stories without even cursory checks as to their veracity. There is also an increasing tendency for various news outlets to rely on press releases and agency copy as primary leads for stories, which are repeated verbatim leading to dubious stories making into papers and bulletins, stuff like that 'regrowing finger' baloney from last year for example.
On top of that you have a sort of echo-chamber effect where papers/stations run with stories because everyone else is. Davies explains it all better than I could, but it's a pretty good argument as to why certain stories spread whilst others disappear.

Another thing is that there really are clear criteria that dictate what stories make headlines and which don't. Recently, for example, a tiny story appeared on the BBC site about a child who survived with no serious side effects after falling into a swimming pool and remaining underwater for something like 20 minutes. A pretty amazing story, exactly the sort of thing that the tabloids love. Except the kid was black, so there was no interest. Or how about the rapidity with which the Holocaust Museum shooting has vanished from the airwaves. No muslims involved, so the story doesn't fit into our ongoing 'terrorism' narrative, and so on. Many stories get dropped because it turns out on further investigation things turn out to be less interesting/miraculous/heroic/terrifying/important than previously thought.
 
it does seem

Stories about James Von Brunn have dried up almost as soon as they started, mainly because the american right is doing its best to distance themselves from him despite all his well documented connections and his well know neo-nazi past.
I wonder if he will become the next lone gunman.
 
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