Quote:
Originally Posted by Budget Player Cadet
It's honestly hard to tell. I mean, they play at being a "real" news site, but at the same time they post phenomenally stupid shit. Same deal with the Daily Mail - occasionally there's a real news story, and the rest of the time the quality is somewhere between "bad" and "BAT-BOY LIVES!"
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Okay, here's the thing. UK newspapers - all of them - have a tactic wherein they draw in the reader, outrage them, then cast them off. Here's how it works:
Paragraph 1) Outrageous story summary. Usually involving inflammatory language and journalistic speculation.
Paragraph 2-X) Actual story, with facts (if known) strung through hyperbole, scandal and the current value of the protagonists' houses. Most readers leave once they reach the bit where they learn that the subject of the story lives in a house cheaper than their own. In other words, just before the truth is revealed.
Last paragraph) After the reader's endurance has been exceeded, just enough genuine facts to avoid the paper being sued are put in, with the full and certain knowledge that it will never be read except by their legal team.
As an aside, the "BAT BOY LIVES" type stories are entirely fictitious, or are written about people whose "If you pay me that I can buy enough drugs to be happy and am too stoned/stupid and won't sue you" value has been ascertained.