I have, for a very long time, got most of my news from the BBC website as it seems fairly reliable and impartial. However, even that needs to contend with other news outlets in this digital age. Apparently, a huge percentage of people now get most of their news from social media, and I can undertstand that. Friends (or friends of friends) are constantly filtering what's going on in the world by "liking" and "sharing" ensuring stories you may be interested in (at least in a peer-reviewed kind of way) arrive on your facebook page. Depending on which "friends" you follow, this can be very important or complete shite. You may read it or just the headline, before liking it and moving on.Anyway, whether we click on a news article or not seems to be predominantly influenced by the headline, the lead photo and how strong-willed/discerning we are about what sort of thing we read. There are any number of opportunities to read about a dog who found his way home from Bermuda, or a near-miss as a helicopter falls out of the sky narrowly missing a pushchair, or what some celebrity said about another celebrity and their recent attempts to lose weight by harvesting stem-cells from mice, or whatever.
Today I have got the list of ten most popular news stories on the BBC website and tried to figure out what they are and if they're interesting or important. It's my general feeling that the BBC, like everyone else, has to use intentionally obscure, ambiguous or mildly sensationalist headlines to garner interest from the increasingly short-attentioned public. Now, being in France, I think I get a more "world news" version of the top ten, but that is probably a good thing.
Here we go.
1. Crisis-hit Gambia extends leader's term
My understanding is the current (rather dictatory) Prime Minister/President of the Gambia (is it still "the" Gambia, or is that painfully outdated) who lost the last election reneged upon his promise to go quietly (probably realising that he'd get chased up on all kinds of financial irregularities/human rights abuses/etc) and decided it'd be better for everyone (i.e. him) if he ignored the popular vote and stayed in power. Other African nations have expressed their displeasure at this sort of behaviour and threatened to impose sanctions, or even military intervention, if he continues to cling to his current office.
Somehow, Gambia must have extended the term of his presidency. But for how long? And when it says Gambia, is it just the president guy himself extending his own term after the election?
A quick read reveals that Parliament has extended his term for 90 days. No-one knows what's going on, there could potentially be two rival presidents (!!) and, importantly for all the Euro-centric readers, Thomas Cook is sending loads of British and Dutch folks home from their holidays early.
Genuine news story. Pretty straightforward headline. Nice. Glad everyone's interested in it too. Next!
2. Obama to free Chelsea Manning
This one requires some prior knowledge. Chelsea Manning is a former military person of some sort who leaked a load of information on what the US Army/Airforce/Navy were up to and some of their biggest bloopers (killing civilians springs to mind). She's also a former man. As part of Obama's last-minute attempts to clear his desk before a complete two-hat wearing primate takes over the country, he's up to all sorts of high jinx. Releasing, or pardoning, this former army chap/woman is one of them.
Actually reading the piece shows that the sentence is being commuted (or reduced, but without regaining the right to vote etc) by quite a bit and she'll be out in May. Obama's not going to break Chelsea out of the prison she's in, although that's make a good script for an "odd couple" buddy movie.
Again, fairly accurate, although you need to know/care who Chelsea Manning is. Americans might click-through hoping/thinking it is the wife/daughter/alter-ego of Peyton Manning (who I'd line up for the part in the above film, due to their celebrity appeal - I'd also have at least one scene where throwing something far and accurately would be a key action).
3. Sex accuser sues Trump for defamation
I'm not sure what a sex accuser is, but the headline has the word Trump in it, so it's already going to be popular. Apparently a "sex accuser" is someone who has (probably rightly) accused someone else (in this case a well-know misogynist) of sexual assault. That seems like a pretty weird way to descibe the possible victim of sexual assault. But there were plenty of "accusations" of the Donald in the build-up to the US election, but the American public are quite happy to accept those as locker-room talk and youthful exuberance rather than sexual assault/rape, so good luck with this one now he's days away from grasping ultimate power in his tiny hands.
4. Babies remember birth language
Scientists have proven that babies who were born "into" one spoken language are later better at speaking that language if taught it. This is apparently interesting. The moral of the story seems to be "talk to your children when they are very young," presumably contrary to the traditional school of thought which advocates keeping them in silence, possibly in a small box, until they are ten years old. What's not made explicit is that talking to children, perhaps making "goo goo ga ga" noises will make them much better at talking gibberish if they are taught it at a later stage.
5. Venomous animals not Australia's deadliest
It's horses. Horses kill more people that all the venomous things put together. However, the way I see it, you should be wary of horses anyway. They're big, powerful and relatively unpredictable. What horses don't do is crawl into your tent when you are asleep, slide into your boot when you are taking a shower, or get into your house and hide under the toilet seat. Horses, and their deadly effects, are more easy to avoid than all the other "less deadly" poisonous things. Similarly, people don't try to ride Black Widow spiders at speed next to lots of other black widow spiders, or treat an Eastern Brown Snake like it's a lovable pet. Are horses more deadly, or are people more stupid when it comes to horses? How many people die from being bitten by horses?
This story makes me think of the transport statistics. Apparently air travel is one of the safest types of transportation because there are only 0.5 deaths per billion miles. However, you're more likely to be travelling much further on a 'plane than a bus (which is also 0.5 deaths per billion miles) so per trip airplanes have got to be more dangerous. Also, if you are involved in a bus crash, you have to be much more likely to survive than if you are involved in a 'plane crash. These stats may be completely wrong, as I've just grabbed them off google, but you may, or may not, get my point.
Why do people click on this sort of news? What are they thinking it's going to be. The potential answers are all domestic animals, humans (dun dun dunnnnn) or Godzilla. When you find out it's horses, you don't think "well that's interesting" unless you own horses, or they are your friends.
6. Johnson: No Brexit punishment beatings
This headline has "Brexit" in it, so automatically of interest to the majority of the population of the UK; either because they are outraged at the whole situation, or because they voted "leave" and are still celebrating "winning" the election like there was some sort of prize that wasn't directly equivalent to shit.
Brexit punishment beatings? For who? If it's pro-Brexiteers, or even just Nigel Farage, I'm well up for that. However it's Johnson saying it (presumably Boris, not "The Rock" who I imagine has much more sense and persuasiveness when it comes to beatings) so perhaps punishment beatings for other EU countries? Or maybe for the UK from other EU countries? Or maybe just good old-fashioned beatings for migrants/foreigners/jews? Johnson's saying there aren't going to be any beatings, but I've never trusted him.
Wow, I've now read the article. Boris tells the EU not to beat up Britain "in the manner of some World War II movie." Seriously, Britain should never have been allowed to win anything. If we succeed in anything, like a World Cup, a war (despite being financially crippled as a result) or having an exploitative, but profitable Empire over a hundred years ago, we spend the next millenia celebrating the fact whilst becoming complacent, smug and borderline evil. That's right Boris, we won the war, or at least our ancestors did, and we'd all be better off if we could put massive reparations on Germany (who are now doing quite well for themselves) like we did at the end of The Great War. What could possibly go wrong in that scenario?
Maybe, when all semblance of greatness is finally removed from Britain by its current isolationist tendancies, there'll be beatings for Johnson, May, Cameron, Farage and Gove (why not, at least he'd be in the public eye). But not for the moment apparently.
7. Man wins 'wheelchair v buggy' bus case
Firstly, if the contest is between "wheelchair" and "buggy" how did a man, or mankind as a whole (although I suspect that would be Man capitalised), win overall? It's like the Ashes being won by a squirrel, or the Olympic Mens' 100 metres sprint being won by a small rock.
Still, I have to assume that some dude has taken a bus company, or TFL, or someone to court to say that his wheelchair should get priority over pushchairs. Otherwise, he's campaigned to have his buggy recognised as equal to a wheelchair on a "first-come first-served" basis. My last guess is that he's got some sort of motorised buggy and thinks that should have the same standing as an old-school wheelchair. Let's see...
Well there you go. The "man" has a wheelchair and was, rightly in my opinion, disappointed that a woman with a buggy would not move so he could get on the bus. Sounds like bus drivers will have to compel other bus users to get the fuck out of the way for wheelchair users. Like, surely all pushchairs fold up nowadays? And you may have loaded it up with shopping or children or whatever but you can't expect to take up a disabled space with all your extra stuff. People in wheelchairs would probably rather not take a load of chair onto the bus as well, but they don't have a choice.
Now we just need the Supreme Court to rule on people who insist on wearing their backpacks on crowded public transport rather than putting it between their legs, or putting their handbags on an empty seat...
8. Trump and the nuclear codes
This is like the title of a "Spot the dog" or Famous Five book. One day Donald Trump was looking for his nuclear codes, he could not remember where he had put them. The Chief of Staff had told him they were very important, but he was so busy sending abusive tweets to his detractors than he had put them down and now couldn't find them anywhere....
Anyway, it's a piece on how the nuclear codes work and how likely the President-elect is to press the metaphorical button, killing us all. I now know that there is an aide who carries a satchel, and in that satchel is a briefcase (now that's double bagging), and in that briefcase is a "biscuit" with codes on it. Seriously, it's a kids book. So Trump went to his aide (which is a special word for a helper) and on his aide's back was a big backpack. In the backpack was a satchel. In the stachel was a briefcase. In the briefcase was a holdall. In the holdall was a handbag. In the handbag was a man-bag. In the man-bag was a bumbag. In the bumbag was a Lidl 50p freezer bag with sealable handle. In the Lidl freezer bag was a sandwich bag. In the sandwich bag was a purse. In the purse was a Victorian card-holder. In the card-holder was a note saying "Donald Trump's got the nuclear codes, we are all going to die."
9. Mark Zuckerberg dismisses VR allegations
Much to my shame, I now use Facebook. That does not, however, make me the slightest bit interested in what Mark Zuckerberg is doing, regardless of whether Facebook has a deep interest in analysing what everyone's doing/reading/clicking for marketing purposes. The headline would suggest that VR, which may be Virtual Reality, is accusing him of doing something or that he is accused of doing things with VR. Is he having sex with virtual sheep? Does he dream of having sex with virtual sheep? Otherwise VR refers obliquely to a person, but I can't think of anyone with those initials. Either way, Mark Z is dismissing those allegations. He's not even denying them, just dismissing them. This story is at number nine. Someone has said something about Virtual Reality and Marky Mark Z-Berg has just gone "nah." Seriously, he better be having sex with virtual sheep, or goats, or whatever...
Well, it's quite a complex one. M to the Z has been in court defending a company bought by him/Facebook against allegations that some of the inherent technology was stolen from elsewhere. We've learnt that the company, Oculus (which is Virtual Reality-based), is costing Facebook more than previously thought, so shareholders will be shocked and stuff. Also, it seems the deal to buy said company was a bit rushed, so there may not have been due diligence and it may have previously been owned by a right-wing nut, or not. It's a business story about a sketchy takeover. I can only assume it's in the top ten because there are a lot of facebook shareholders reading it. Or that everyone cares what Mark Zuckerberg is doing. Do people actually add him as a friend on Facebook, because if so that is weird. It's like the CEO of Samsung automatically putting his phone number on your new phone. This news is not particularly important to me.
10. Egypt adds ex-footballer to terror list
Seriously, even reading this title I don't care. Are people clicking on it because they're hoping the ex-footballer is Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne, because that's the only one I can think it might be. I suppose Phil Neville is a possible terror suspect, but only because his "cover" of being a football pundit is so clearly a ruse. Since when has the world been interested in Egypt's terror list? Who else is on it? Will the full list be shown on the page (1. Ali Baba, 2. Al Capone, 3. Alan Rickman (RIP), etc...)? This is how interested in football the world is. I can't wait to be disappointed by this one.
Mohamed Abutrika. That's right, the Egyptian establishment considers the Muslim Brotherhood "a terrorist organisation" and our Mohamed is thought to have financially supported the group. He is facing a travel ban and seizure of his assets. Don't get me wrong, there is probably important stuff going on with Egypt, the Brotherhood and the legality of labelling people as potential terrorists, but whether Mr Abutrika is specifically being treated illegally.... I'm surprised so many people care.
I did enjoy learning that the aforementioned footballer was known as "The Magician," as well as "The Saint" and "The Prince of Hearts." I wonder if he was related to Princess Diana in any way. Lots of definite articles there though, which shows he was highly regarded until he allegedly fell in with the wrong apparently terroristy crowd... With none of his many nicknames being "The Terrorist" I'm inclined to think he's alright. Yeah, footballers are mercenary and responsible for 90% of sexual assaults in the UK, but they're not terrorists are they?
To Conclude
Really not sure why I bothered with all that. But I've written it now. I can't unwrite it. Well, I can, I just press delete, but it's taken a good amount of time so I'll click publish instead. I'm tempted to think it was a better idea than I've proved it to be.
And that's the waaaaaaaaay the news goes.
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