The interesting thing about this story is not so much what it tells us as what it doesn't. On the one hand we know - or are at least told, which isn't necessarily the same - that Romanians were responsible for 1,080 offences in the first six months of 2007 compared to 135 in the same period of 2006, that the Mail believes this constitutes an "explosion in crime in this country", and that "in an ironic twist" a Romanian mayor thinks the number of offences committed in his town might have fallen since the country joined the EU.
Needless to say, the article never stoops to reporting facts, either by explaining what the offences were or whether they took place in one small town - where the word "explosion" could be justified - or nationally, in which case the choice of noun would be patently absurd. Have Romanian migrants started a littering epidemic, straining the resources of the police and the Keep Britain Tidy campaign? Are hundreds more East Europeans parking their cars on double yellow lines, shoplifting bars of chocolate or smoking in enclosed public spaces? If I've never seen a Romanian committing any of those crimes in South Tyneside does that anecdotally cancel out the mayor's evidence?
Try this for an ironic twist, Mail readers, a journalist who's Slack by name as well as by nature, and still you swallow every word.
No comments:
Post a Comment