I'm not a man who enjoys a morning. I often use this fact to justify the normality of my sleeping through the most of them, but sometimes that early drag of an awakening is unavoidable. That was the case today, as I was on my way back to Portsmouth for a visit to the family, as well as another trip to Fratton Park (which, of the two, was the most enticing draw).
Having got back late from a friend's house last night, and then spending a couple of restless hours on the internet, I finally put my head against the pillow at 3am. My coach was scheduled for 10am, meaning my sleep was cut to about five hours as I had to squeeze between commuters and get the tube from Wimbledon Park to Victoria, where the bus station was. Having fought my body over a potential extension to my sleep, I stumbled towards Wimbledon Park station and unwittingly picked up a copy of the Metro. Boy, that was a mistake. Having used the ounce of energy left within me to snatch at the final seat on the train, I leant my head back exasperatedly and gazed at the newspaper.
'News' being the dubious word there. You could easily replace it with 'mind-crushing depression for the very soul'. Given that this was a paper for commuters attempting to wake their brain up, it was only fitting that the front page had an article about children being accused of witchcraft and tortured. What a sunny outlook to begin the day with. The only mild relief my brain got out of the cover was the thoughtful juxtaposition of the inset picture, which was Prince Charles yielding a gun.
Ignoring the fluff piece about Eurovision on page three, I quickly moved onto the next spread. On page five, I was greeted by a cheery number labelled "A STAGGERING ACT OF CRUELTY" topped with cheery pictures of bloodstained ceramic slabs, a hammer (also bloodstained), a knife and a pair of pliers. The imagination may not be bright in that daybreak stupor, but it doesn't take long to muster up the imagery of this particular crime.
'It can only get better', I dare to think. Moving on to the next pages, we get not one, but two lovely stories of an unbelievably tragic nature. One regarding a terminally ill child that discovered his fate after Googling his symptoms, and one regarding a mother who had gone into labour whilst at the grave of her dead fiance. I can tell you, the stifled smiles and giggles from everyone reading this particular page just lit up the train!
'Wow', I thought, 'That is surely all the human tragedy they can shove into one morning...'. Oh my naive morning self can be so adorable. Turning to the next pages, we get another brace of tragic tales. Lucky me! One regards the suicide of PC Rathband, a unspeakably awful story, and the other talks about Holly Willoughby's live TV breakdown last night as she became tearful during a guests' recount of a cancer tale. Having a good morning yet, Londoners?
Editorially speaking, today's issue of the Metro was a disaster. I couldn't possibly make a judgement about it on a whole, as I don't pick it up often enough to get a complete picture of this paper, and today could easily have been a one-off. But in truth, this does seem to be a bit of a trend with all media at the moment. Tragedy makes for the best entertainment unfortunately, and you only have to look at some of the gawdy women's magazines for evidence. Some of the headlines on those tripey publications are completely laughable. "My dead husband's ghost raped me and then everyone I knew died" (That is an exaggeration, before you put that into Google).
Even with books now, we see that there is a market that plays to the morbid. Hundreds of books are now published which relay the every brutal act of a real-life childhood of abuse and pain. Often these books will have a title like 'That miserable kid' which is put in handwritten font, and there will be a picture of a child's face in the Sky above a lonely boy walking down a beach in the distance. Some of them chart a triumph over adversity, which is always nice. But a lot of them get hung up on the grizzly details, which grabs the attention of people like a car crash.
I'd like to think that as a society we're not so downbeat and despondent about everything. However, sales tell tales, and what we can learn from the most successful media outlets is that bad news will get more attention than good news. I suppose I'll have to learn to accept that. But please, in a free paper for morning commuters, can I not maybe get a happy thought somewhere in the first nine pages? Or at least a picture of a lovely cat?
"Or at least a picture of a lovely cat?"
ReplyDeleteI have a question for YOU my friend...
When does the narwhal bacon?
Oh and have you heard of "get me a murder a day?", that was the mantra of one particular news paper owner (I forget the name). But it gives you an idea that most news that gets its revenue from selling, and not adverstising, relies on "info-tainment". A horrid breed of "entertainment" (more like shock therapy) and news.
Uhmm, at midnight?
DeleteI've never heard that quote before, but it's tremendously befitting. The thing is, we seem to have exaggerated that beyond belief these days, where 'murder' has come to signify any story involving heartbreak, tragedy or death. The media seems to revel in the morbid, but there must be an audience that joins them in their mirth.
I agree with you though, the 'info-tainment' is the key to the success of the media these days as informing just isn't enough in the modern sphere, but it does produce deplorable results. What I would argue though is that the Metro has no necessity to stoop to such a level. After all, it's a free paper so all it's revenue is coming from advertising. And I would definitely buy something if the opposite page had a picture of a lovely cat on it.