When media hype fails, use Hitler

Published 02nd December 2009 - 5 comments - 1093 views -

A British newspaper, The Independent, offers its readers a "Climate change special", titled "Twelve days to save the world". (Where have we seen that before?) But not content with Armageddon in less than a fortnight, the paper goes one better with "We face a threat as terrible as that posed by Hitler, says Johann Hari. Now we must rise to the challenge."

Ah, yes, Hitler. Approximately, the first hyperlink under this insane comparison is "Welcome to the age of extremes". What's so fitting is that the mainstream media, in a desperate bid to seem relevant, has moved from responsible journalism to extremism, from conscientious commentary to reckless cant. Bloggers have been accused of many things, but if a blogger here were to frame an argument around the climate debate with language such as "We face a threat as terrible as that posed by Hitler", she or he would be told to cool the language. And rightly so.   

 It is sad and it is troubling to see the newspaper business, once a trusted source of information and opinion, become an absurdity and an anachronism.

Category: Deforestation, | Tags: hype, hitler, cant, newspapers, hypocrisy, cynicism,

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Eamonn Fitzgerald
Munich
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Ex-pat Irishman living at the foot of the Alps. Keeps an eye on the world from this vantage point.

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Often imitated. Never duplicated. TH!NK ABOUT IT is a project by the European Journalism Centre.