Distorted news value

[Pervert]

If this had happened in the US, the news site would have featured it prominently. Instead, because it involves non-English speakers, you have to go looking for it---and it featured third in a list of foreign news stories.

Finland is a hell of a lot closer to the UK than the US is, so why is it that wildfires in California, or mining disasters in Virginia, are given more prominence than similar situations in Greece or the former Soviet state of Georgia?

[Officer Dibble]

Because culturally and socially we have far more in common with our colonial cousins over the pond than we do with folks in obscure places like Finland and Georgia - both places of which the average British Joe knows little and cares less. What happens in the States matters, because America matters.

But you already know this, Carac. So why am I having to spell it out?



Officer Dibble

[Pervert]

If I knew it, I wouldn't be asking. Ossifer. It bothers me that the relevance of a news story seems to be:

1) Brits involved
2) US involved
3) English speaking ex-colonies with a lot of whites involved
4) Who cares?

[Deuce Bigolo]

While it pretends to be a global news service for everyone its anything

Its not until you find a truly global news service(we have sbs.com.au ) in OZ
that stories of this ilk are given their proper place

It could also be that the BBC garners the bulk of its foreign news from its USA counterparts I know in OZ thats pretty much how it works
for the commercial players

[Pervert]

In fairness, the Beeb site rectified things later. But as a breaking news story it should have been flagged up.

[Deuce Bigolo]

Distorted news = editor in control
Someone would have got their ass kicked

These facts alone

FINLAND GUN FACTS
5.2 million population
World's third highest gun ownership
56 guns per 100 people
Low rate of gun violence
Guns used in 14% of homicides

make it a headline story

[Pervert]

It's newsworthy on all sorts of grounds, but---hey---what do I know?

[Deuce Bigolo]

One can ownly wonder why it diidn't get the same treatment as that scottish massacre at dunblane(spelling?)

Again all comes down to the editor in chief and what they want to run

You see Foreign snippets all thetime which involve loss of life but are usually via natural diasters.

[Pervert]

Dunblane was, and remains, different to the pattern of school shootings. An outsider with no connection to the school as such, it was primary kids, and the last time anything even close to comparable happened in the UK was back in the 1960s when nutjob Robert Mone (junior) killed a pregnant teacher in a Dundee school.

Most of the shootings have involved secondary schools, disgruntled ex or present pupils, and people old enough to see the danger of what's coming.

Dunblane was truly horrific. Five and six year olds executed by a sad case with an unnatural interest in under-age boys worried because he was in danger of having his guns taken away.

Conspiracy theory warning: there's a group up here that believes Thomas Hamilton was allowed to keep his gun licence, even though junior police officers who visited him as part of the inspection process recommended it be removed, because he was a senior mason and top officers and even the local MP (one George Robertson) were junior to him in the lodge. Can't vouch for any of that myself, but the inquiry into the shooting heard witness after witness describe why he should not be allowed weapons and how dangerous he was.