Did someone say doctored??

“DO LESBIANS KILL THE COUNTRYSIDE?”

Well, they actively supported Mosley and the British Union of Faschists and thought that Hitler and the Nazis were doing good work.

I suppose it depends what you mean by ‘Decline and Fall’

Good heavens. That Science Photo is hiLARious.

But it’s not just the Mail. Most of the British newspaper industry went the same way then or shortly afterwards. If any Brits here are ever tempted to claim superiority to the Americans, they should just go and take a close look at the junk in their local newsagents – and remember that many of their compatriots actually believe that junk.

I thought the Daily Mail was a newspaper.

It is. Your error is in believing that a newspaper has an obligation to anything other than selling newspapers.

Weird, this is the second time today I’ve heard the word “purple” used as a negative adjective.

The other being on PZ’s blog:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/now_i_guess_i_must_vote_for_ob.php
“James Dobson has given his screeching purple anti-endorsement,”

SO…. what exactly does purple mean in this context?

Given that it was the Daily Mail, I thought it would be much worse.

To say that “UFO trashes Journalism” implies journalism had something worth trashing. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that the advertisements had the only truths that could be relied on in newspapers, and we all know how William Randolph Hearst supposedly said “You supply the pictures, and I’ll supply the war.”

Maybe I’ve mentioned it before, but about a hundred years ago a relative discovered a “ghost” was a cat. The reporter with him refused to write the story, saying “Everyone wants to read about a ghost. No one wants to read about an old cat.”

I don’t think things have improved one whit. As I compare stories I know firsthand or have looked into myself with what’s reported, I’m sure of it.

If anyone doubts that, I invite them to examine how newspapers handle vaccination stories. Note how they bury the fact that there’s *no* link between vaccines and autism deep within a story, and lead with headlines and interviews that suggest such a link exists.

“It’s about time some of these events made breaking news rather than being hushed up and us having to ask for files to be released under the freedom of information act. Police Officers would not report a UFO unless they were very sure it was one and something from not around here. If it was another aircraft but they couldn’t be sure what type of aircraft, they would have said so. They simply wouldn’t risk their careers and the risk of humiliation if they weren’t 100% sure if was a UFO! The sooner people realise this sort of thing REALLY happens, the better!”

…PAPER BAG! PAPER. BAG. On fire!

You know what’s really annoying about that article? They simultaneously use “UFO” to mean “unidentified flying object” and “extraterrestrial spacecraft”. They even seem fully aware those are two separate terms.

“The chopper had to swerve sharply to avoid being hit. The guys said if they’d stayed where they were, they’d be dead – it would’ve been a direct hit.

I’d be more convinced if I didn’t know that experience pilots have dodged meteors that were miles away to avoid a mid-air collision.

You’d think that people would learn by now, wouldn’t you?

But then again, “Police Helicopter Chases Floating Paper Lantern” or “British Soldier Sees Fleet of Floating Paper Lanterns” won’t sell quite as many copies of the Daily Mail or The Sun.

I expect if ETs ever do show up, they’ll be laughing their arses off(or the equivalent) at the funny way we interpret things.

GAry 7

Surely they’d never expect to see any unfamiliar aircraft there…

It looks like The Mail swiped the story straight from The Sun anyway – they didn’t even edit the attributions in the text…