redtops

How can any self-respecting person now buy the 'red top' papers aka the Sun and the Mirror? They may have reservations about the others, but these have become an offence to truth.It has always been suspected that some of their 'stories' are created from a miasma of invention and illegal prying, and there is only one way to register a protest: refuse to buy them. I became a trainee reporter with the Derby Evening Telegraph in 1948 and it was drilled into me then that  truth was sacred. Of course there are ways to present facts in such a way that they are compelling but the criteria for any news item is that it should be 'new, true and interesting'. The way Chris Jefferies was treated over the murder of a woman in Bristol was a disgrace based on speculation. The papers that pilloried this man are rightly being punished, but hardly with the severity that will prevent them from offending again. The way they work  to feed the apparent public taste for vulgarity is such that we must express disgust with them. Red tops dominate the piles of papers in newsagents' shops: a powerful indication of the sad lives that many people lead. NOTE: public meeting Sunday September 4 7.15 at PICL Palace, Congregational church car park,  Kng Street Newcastle, Staffs. 'Can we trust the media'.