A Case Study in Bad Journalism

[Nate760]

www[HEY]suttoncoldfield[THIS]observer.co.uk/[STORY]E-cig-refill-alert-to t[SUCKS]-swallows-nicotine/story-22915661-detail/story.html

Courtesy of our good friends at something called the Royal Sutton Coldfield Observer (at least bad newspapers have classy-sounding names in the UK. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than "Claptrap County Times-Spitoon"), who inform us that:

1. The supposedly-poisoned toddler apparently wasn't worth mentioning after the second sentence of the story. No mention of whether she was actually harmed, or whether the decision to "rush" her to the hospital was warranted, or whether she's currently clinging to life in the pediatric nicotine OD ward. Her only function in the narrative is to inspire a sensationally alarmist headline and then quietly disappear.

2. Recent studies have shown that 26.2 nanograms of nicotine will KILL A HERD OF ELEPHANTS.

3. If you swallow something called a "refill cartridge bottle" (I like to imagine a big vodka jug full of Blu cartos), you're probably going to die.

 

[NorthOfAtlanta]

Found this in the 9th paragraph,

The toddler vomited shortly after licking the nicotine refill and did not have any other symptoms. She was then observed for six hours before being discharged.

nice place to hide it if you want to spread FUD for WHO.

Apparently the nicotine did what it always does, she vomited it up and was fine.

Kid did what they all do, Mom reacted correctly and the press wrote the story for maximum glANTZ propoganda.

 

[Kent C]

Apparently the nicotine did what it always does, she vomited it up and was fine.

It's the perfect "poison". They should put it in anti-freeze Then the animals would vomit it up. No need to make it 'safer' with propylene glycol - just add the right amount of nicotine

 

[sonicdsl]

Found this in the 9th paragraph,



nice place to hide it if you want to spread FUD for WHO.

Apparently the nicotine did what it always does, she vomited it up and was fine.

Kid did what they all do, Mom reacted correctly and the press wrote the story for maximum glANTZ propoganda.

glANTZoganda??

 

[Stosh]

Rather silly article, worthy of a comment to the author......

 

[xpl0it]

Just one drop is equivalent to two cigarettes.

With statements like that you can't even begin to take the article seriously.

 

[DrMA]

Just one article like this is equivalent to two steaming piles of male bovine excrement.

 

[Nate760]

It's amazing how these prohibition stories always have the same narrative, even when separated by nearly a century: low-level public hysteria breeds sensationalist yellow journalism, which in turn breeds more widespread public hysteria (which at this point is being fueled by appeals to racism/xenophobia; substitute "Chinese" for "black people" as needed), which in turn breeds frenzied calls for government intervention, which in turn breeds nonsensical lawmaking that sometimes persists for 80 years or more.

 

[Kent C]

It's amazing how these prohibition stories always have the same narrative, even when separated by nearly a century: low-level public hysteria breeds sensationalist yellow journalism, which in turn breeds more widespread public hysteria (which at this point is being fueled by appeals to racism/xenophobia; substitute "Chinese" for "black people" as needed), which in turn breeds frenzied calls for government intervention, which in turn breeds nonsensical lawmaking that sometimes persists for 80 years or more.

And again, the Chinese before the blacks in the building of the railroads. The Chinese wanted jobs on the railroad after it was built, and we got our first drug laws as a result (because media playing up the 'opium problem') and Chinese workers were forced out of the country by that first anti-drug movement fueled by the start of railroad unions (one of which I am a member, btw). Later, in an early version of 'equal pay,' unions again, stripped the black ranks of engineers, switchmen, rail workers and carmen and relegated them to basically one job - stewards on the passenger trains. State Against Blacks by Walter Williams.

 

[ElConquistador]

With statements like that you can't even begin to take the article seriously.

Well, WE can't take it seriously, but what's frightening is the number of people who will believe it.

 

[Berylanna]

glANTZoganda??

No, silly, propaglantza.