(Photo by Greg Elms.Housing in the Divisoria District Manila National Capital Region Philippines. Right-clicked from www.allposters.com, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes, free service by blog-use of image provided by and from said site)
I completely forgot!
How could the most important event to mankind slip my mind today? There’s supposed to be an apocalyptic earthquake today! that would wipe out all things ambulating on the face of the earth. What time is the scheduled earthquake again? You have to plan your schedule around it by avoiding being inside rooms. The term “earthquake” and “doomsday earthquake” was googled so much yesterday that even if i didn’t write anything, my dashboard showed people were viewing articles with the word “earthquake” .
Why is it not news when nothing “bad” happens?
In tomorrow’s newspapers, would we have a news story with a lead that reads like this? —
“The earth was still yesterday.”
(my lead! I like short slug leads.)
Or:
“Yesterday, it was all calm
“The doomsday earthquake did not occur.”
A mediocre news lead writer (ang kapal ko ‘no, i’m so yabang naman) would probably have:
“There was no earthquake yesterday for 24 hours, disproving an earlier prediction circulated widely in the internet.”
Too long, trite , predictable, passive, etc.
[But no, when nothing “bad or unusual” (e.g., crime, conflict, tragedies, sex and violence, oddity, wars, etc.) happens, as the editors put it: it’s not news; so, no, there won’t be a news story tomorrow on the peace and quiet (but you could come up with good leads for it!); it’s still the blood trail: news on some crime or accident.)
The day is not yet over. It’s still not too late to repent. Repe-e–ent!
