Tabloid news: “oh, the horror!”

 

by Stuart Bigless

I must admit to being one who gravitates toward The Age online site to keep up with current news events. I find that the Age tends to avoid the sensationalist approach to news that its main competitor seems to revel in.

Or so I thought. Here’s what I found last night when I did a pre-bedtime news check:

 

See that bit about the dollar slipping below parity? And the blurb under it?

“Online shoppers and overseas travellers are watching in horror as the Aussie dollar sli…”

Hang on, hang on! “Watching in horror”? “Horror”?? “HORROR”???”

Now I’m sure the idea of Australian dollar slipping back to a level somewhere around where it’s been for most of the last few years (i.e. just below parity) might be of significant disappointment to some, especially, as the Age points out, those buying online from the US or those planning to travel soon. But I defy anyone to tell me they’ve witnessed a look of HORROR on anyone’s face as they’ve learned the news of that possibility (as I type this it hasn’t even happened yet!) of the Australian dollar slipping below the value of the US one.

People looked on in HORROR last weekend at a US airshow when a racing plane lost control and ploughed into a crowd of onlookers, killing and injuring many. People looked on in HORROR ten years ago, when they saw, in person or on TV, planes crashing into the Twin Towers, and soon after as people literally jumped to their death from those buildings.

I don’t think anybody looked on in HORROR last night, really. Do you?

Come on you people down at the Age Online. You’re better than that. Leave that sort of stuff to the tabloid sensationalism experts who live just down the information superhighway from you.