It seems every month (or every week if you read the Daily Mail) there is some comment piece in a newspaper along the lines of:
“I don’t mind cyclists – I watched a bit of it on the Olympics. But, really cyclists a bunch of smug, lycra clad tofu nosed urban terrorists who drive my old granny off the pavement into the gutter. ”
I think I actually last read such an article back in about 2008 when Matthew Paris suggested cyclists should be caught with wire across cycle paths or something like that. I don’t usually comment on them because it becomes rather tedious. Perhaps newspapers get more money when they receive 200 comments plus.
Anyway, I thought this was a very good article with nicely summarises the main gist of articles on cyclists by lazy newspaper – The terrible Journalist’s guide to writing a newspaper article.
The news rags these days are all creaking at the amount of paper they cannot use, there days are over when they are selling for twenty p or less ,they look for any scape goat to sell paper after all most of them more than likely have interests in paper mills and forests, as for the massive surge in cycling due to the price of fuel ,and popularity of a healthier uk , lifestyle ,
All the fat cat news barons will go to a place were they will feel a little warmer !!!!!
“Perhaps newspapers get more money when they receive 200 comments plus”
That’s sort of it. Online articles are more profitable when they generate more page views, since you also view the ads on the page. “controversial” (read: terrible) articles that generate negative attention are good money-making tools.
Essentially, it’s formalised trolling.