Job applicants at the Sun are given a compulsory written test, during which they must turn a set of innocuous facts into a rabid conservative polemic(*).
The best candidates construct a narrative of treachery and vileness around the facts, so that readers come away from the sample article thinking ‘damn those Greens/Mothers Against Drink Driving/nuns/National Youth Orchestra’. Lower-caliber applicants merely present the innocuous facts using as many perjorative words as possible, so that readers instead think ‘what a miserable bastard this writer is for hating those nice Greens/Mothers Against Drink Driving/nuns/National Youth Orchestra for no reason’.
Today, the Sun appears to have mistakenly published a rejected applicant’s article on the Lib Dems.
(*) This description may not be authentic, but the facts behind it are very real.
…and those rejected by the Sun go on the join the Mail.
Although, for proper balance you also like to this…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14665377%26method=full%26siteid=50143%26headline=the%2dorange%2dtories-name_page.html
Does that mean that "if its not in the Sun. its not worth reading" is untrue – I believe everything I read in the papers
mystic mog
Apparently people wanting a job on Hansard are given a recording of a John Prescott speech and asked to turn it into coherent written English – and unlike the Sun example, this is (allegedly) entirely true!
I thought it was really good. And most of the information in it came from the Labour Party, who are really getting into the language of law’n’order. Its liberating for PC types to be un-PC. Come on, let it out !
Aw, just cos you joined the Dark Side doesn’t mean we all have to…
"And the Lib Dems would hit anyone earning £100,000 or more with a 50 per cent basic rate of tax."
Which begs the question, just how many Sun readers is THAT going to affect?
Very few Sun *readers* – it’ll affect their senior staff, board members and investors more, though. Which is why newspapers spend so much time honing their careful use of language and fallacious (but plausable) arguments.
And then they accuse our political leaders of being an intellectual elite…
I like the idea of the Sun criticising someone for exaggerating.