I couldn't believe my eyes today. At the newspaper stand there was a tabloid with the headline: WAS THIS THE LION?
Just a few days after I blogged about it, the lion sighting from 20 years ago is news again. Unbelievable. Coincidence? Well, it is July.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Sunday, July 08, 2012
Man bites... a lion!
I've been following a few blogs from around the world, many of them cycling related. In one of the British ones, there was a post named Man Bites Dog how a cyclist injuring a pedestrian gets big headlines while thousands of pedestrians are injured by motor vehicles every year and they rarely get mentioned. Someone said the newspapers would be full of such articles and there would be no room for anything else!
On the local papers, the scale is smaller and also smaller traffic incidents can be newsworthy. It's more interesting to hear something happened at a place you know or have visited. You might even know the people involved, so unless anyone died it's just good material for gossiping.
On the TV sport news, there was a few reports on some Jamaican sprinter not winning some race. I wasn't paying very much attention because it wasn't the Olympics or a new world record. Maybe it was important for his qualification to the Olympics, but who cares? It happens every day. Much more interesting to me was the news about a local getting a medal in triathlon race. Because she's local!
Even if all incidents were reported on the news, the 'man bites dog' incidents would still get the most attention. The fact that they're rare makes them interesting, makes them stand out. Until they're forgotten.
Like the case of the 'Waving Woman' a few months back. I don't think I wrote about it before. At the time it got some headlines on the tabloids, now it's all but forgotten.
The Waving Woman was a motorist who would stop in front of the pedestrian crossing as if to let the children cross. When they stepped on the street she's accelerate at the kids. And she'd done this several times on different days. I recall reading she'd injured some kids but nobody had been killed. The police was searching for clues. Parents were alarmed. Kids learned to be wary of cars while crossing the street, which might have been her motive.
What ever happened? Did the police catch her? Or was it all a hoax? An April's Fool joke that resurfaced a month later as a rumor, with kids using their imagination to exaggerate the events? I don't recall reading anything more about the case. It was in May, and the news has moved on. In July, most of the country is on holiday and the news are slow, even lion sighting stories can stay alive weeks.
Yes, a lion! And thus I can one-up the headline: Man bites Lion! :-D
On the other hand, Bear sightings are so common they're rarely mentioned in the news.
On the local papers, the scale is smaller and also smaller traffic incidents can be newsworthy. It's more interesting to hear something happened at a place you know or have visited. You might even know the people involved, so unless anyone died it's just good material for gossiping.
On the TV sport news, there was a few reports on some Jamaican sprinter not winning some race. I wasn't paying very much attention because it wasn't the Olympics or a new world record. Maybe it was important for his qualification to the Olympics, but who cares? It happens every day. Much more interesting to me was the news about a local getting a medal in triathlon race. Because she's local!
Even if all incidents were reported on the news, the 'man bites dog' incidents would still get the most attention. The fact that they're rare makes them interesting, makes them stand out. Until they're forgotten.
Like the case of the 'Waving Woman' a few months back. I don't think I wrote about it before. At the time it got some headlines on the tabloids, now it's all but forgotten.
The Waving Woman was a motorist who would stop in front of the pedestrian crossing as if to let the children cross. When they stepped on the street she's accelerate at the kids. And she'd done this several times on different days. I recall reading she'd injured some kids but nobody had been killed. The police was searching for clues. Parents were alarmed. Kids learned to be wary of cars while crossing the street, which might have been her motive.
What ever happened? Did the police catch her? Or was it all a hoax? An April's Fool joke that resurfaced a month later as a rumor, with kids using their imagination to exaggerate the events? I don't recall reading anything more about the case. It was in May, and the news has moved on. In July, most of the country is on holiday and the news are slow, even lion sighting stories can stay alive weeks.
Yes, a lion! And thus I can one-up the headline: Man bites Lion! :-D
On the other hand, Bear sightings are so common they're rarely mentioned in the news.
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