Yesterday, Letters From A Tory mentioned the headline on the front page of the print edition of that morning’s Daily Mail, which read A Sore Throat — 48 Hours Later Chloe Was Dead1. Clearly, in typical Daily Mail fashion, the headline has been designed to attract as much attention and induce as much fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of potential Daily Mail readers as possible.
What I find particularly interesting, though, is the difference between that headline, and the headline attached to the matching article on the Daily Mail website. Online, the headline says “NHS helplines swamped as swine flu panic rises after death of six-year-old girl”. The article talks about how helplines are beginning to get swamped because of the level of fear, uncertaintly and doubt that has been going around over swine flu. Concerned parents, who probably have little to worry about in the first place, are calling the NHS because of reports in the news suggesting that the pandemic is growing more dangerous.
I can’t help but see this as a work of genius on the part of The Daily Mail. They try their hardest to induce a panic, and then as soon as people start reacting, they write about how much trouble the panic is causing. The print edition of the paper gets extra sales on the back of a headline that is so provocative it can’t help but put parents on their toes. When a statistically significant proportion of those parents call NHS helplines for advice, the Daily Mail gets to write a whole new story for the web about how the helplines are getting swamped. Hey presto, extra traffic for the website!
You’ve got to hand it to them there, surely – that’s a touch of class. The editor who came up with that one, give yourself a pat on the back. I honour the place where your shrewd news management and my warped sense of humour become one.
- I’ve been searching for a high resolution image, but it’s inexplicably difficult to find pics of front pages – the thumbnail is from PoliticsHome [↩]