Was the headline English and Australian readers of legacy media ™ weren’t presented with last week.
But it’s a reasonable alternative to the various versions of the same story;
Or this one;
The trouble is, as with all news stories these days, the rush to publish in real time is at the expense of any effort to investigate or analyse.
There’s a clue in the video itself, if one is open to looking for it; a second before the angry ginger-haired cricketer starts swinging haymakers, his “victim” swings his right arm at the person standing next to Stokes. Look at what is in his hand.
A bottle.
Here’s a news flash for everyone who doesn’t understand how physical conflict works; you come at me with a weapon when I don’t have one and, if I manage to get a punch to connect, I will not stop trying to punch you until you are incapable of using that weapon.
And then I’ll call the police.
Put it another way; what is the correct response to an attacker with a bottle in a darkened street with no nearby police?
Interestingly, several versions of the video are in existence. The ones which made it onto the webpages of most media reports have that first, crucial action with the bottle missing. That’s quite telling, isn’t it?
In the meantime, more information has emerged, yet to be corroborated. For example, the bottle-swinger was an ex-army veteran (so presumably not a stranger to a bit of biffo) and that the argument started after he threatened two gay men.
Bill’s Opinion
If you are a famous sportsman and want to avoid street fights and negative headlines on the eve of a major competition, don’t go late night drinking in nightclubs.
Similarly, if you like your facts to be complete, ignore most of what you read or see in the legacy media ™ until about a week after the event.
There needs to be some changes to media education at school. Rather than learning about what the media is, its lofty ideals etc, they need to learn about the economics of it. That is, they get paid by attracting eyeballs/readers. No readers, no journalists – except at my ABC.
So eyeball attracting outweighs concerns over factual accuracy, because their jobs depend on it (famous quote inserted here). Although, if the facts above are correct, a better story might have been “Ben Stokes comes to rescue of nonces under attack by military thug”. Everyone’s a winner! Except the military thug, who ends up both demonised and beaten up.
Of course the control of the media over many of the messages in society, and their ability to cower everyone (CEO of a big bank for instance, who otherwise has an ego and conviction level observable from space), will ensure that this message will never be broadly cast.
There was some advantage to them being subsidised by our classified advertising – they at least didn’t have to be so fucking irritating, because they didn’t have to be in our faces to get our dollars. Or infest every web page we open with pop ups, auto run videos etc.
The famous quote you’re looking for is from Upton Sinclair, I think.
Isn’t a nonce a child abuser? I think “ponce” is more accurate in the absence of any further background of said couple.
Agree re nonce/ponce. An underused word.
Wranger stitched up like a hand made suit.
“Ranga” shorely?