Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Mel fooled by her own newspaper…?

One of the things I often say about the Mail is that it words things in a particularly sly way, to try and give the impression of A while actually saying B. Today's offering is exactly that, skilfully giving the (wrong) impression that doctors are being bribed to give teenagers contraceptive advice specifically if they don't tell the parents. Of course that's not the story at all, and it's quickly unravelled in the following paragraphs, where it's explained that it's to give contraception advice to anyone, regardless of whether it's underage kids who aren't telling their parents or not.

Unfortunately, one Mail reader at least appears to have been confused enough by this deliberate mislead. The Mail reader in question is Melanie Phillips, who has decided that the false impression created by the headline/intro combo is actually the kernel of the story:

As campaigners have warned, such payments will act as bribes to doctors to give thousands of under-age girls contraception without the knowledge of their parents.

But no, that's not it at all. So there are only a limited number of conclusions we can draw from this:

1. Mel is so thick she got fooled by her own newspaper.
2. She only reads the headline and intro of stories, and never finds out about the qualifying statements beneath.
3. She knows it's not that at all, but says that it's true in order to perpetuate the lie and add her own gravitas to it, because it fits in nicely with her worldview and attacks the people she doesn't like.
4. She truly is the world's worst journalist. Ever.

Who knows which one it is...?

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