Man Bites Dog - The Summer of Silliness '09

Traditionally the summer news correspondents have been typified by the cliché of “silly season”, cyclical news reports to maintain readership have been commonplace for many years. The news daily’s reproducing gossip and rumour as fact has been a staple of media output in the summer months since the mass media was created.

There is no better example than last bastions of truth and exposition the Daily Mail and Daily Express as the purveyors of this silly season. These papers have single-handedly keep the public “informed” about the latest conspiracies concern the death of Lady Diana for nearly twelve years. Using trite stories, with sensational headlines and the overuse of the phrases such as “a source close to…” or “an insider revealed…”, the summer was a time of lazy journalism and even lazier readers.

However, this year has been slightly unusual in many respects; there has been a feast of news issues that have dominated the media over the summer - Afghanistan, Libya, the NHS, MPs living in poverty, the FSA and possibly the end of the recession. The media has avoided the temptation of heavily relying upon emotional stories to sell papers; instead they have preferred to report the news – now that really is a silly season.