Limerick Leader Loses Vital Informants
Posted on Monday, June 9, 2008Small-town newspapers are heavily dependent on a tiny group of people for comment and witness reports.
For years, the Limerick Leader has leaned heavily on One Man, and A Local Woman, whenever there’s an accident or a robbery, or a fire.
It was awful, said a local woman. They choked all the chickens and they made faces at me before running away.
One man said he’d never seen anything like it. I never saw anything like it.
Now, I’m afraid, that’s all over, due to a fundamental error by a junior reporter. You might not know this, but all local papers have an iron-clad rule that witnesses must never meet. Unfortunately, one newly-recruited spotty youth failed to understand the danger and introduced One Man and A Local Woman to each other.
The result was obvious: they ran away together, to Australia.
He’s the One, said a local woman.
I never saw anything like it, said one man.
That leaves the paper with a severe informant shortage. Right now, they’re struggling by with only A Worried Parent and Senior Garda Sources.
This is probably the greatest crisis the Limerick Leader has ever faced, according to a well-known media figure.
Stumble it!
June 9th, 2008
Oh dear, has ‘Moyross resident’ been gagged?
June 9th, 2008
Limerick needs some concerned bystanders and fast.
June 9th, 2008
I’ve been given to understand by local community activists that steps are being taken to remedy the situation, and that a swift resolution may be in Prospect or one of the towns close by.
June 9th, 2008
What does A Man Out Walking His Dog have to say about all this?
June 9th, 2008
thats really awful, so does that mean that given they don’t have an unnamed sourse to “quote”( no, thats not tautology, the word quote needed quotes) that they’ll have to stop making stuff up and actually get up off their arses, I’m sure the hack union will have something to say about that, “they’ll need paying for that, I say, paying”, one sourse close to the union is said to been heard saying over lunch at a nearby table.
June 9th, 2008
Essodee.
The man out walking with his dog is probably best avoided.
Notice every time a body is discovered in a field or the forest, by the riverbank, in the desert, up an alleyway….anywhere in the world it seems….who’s reported as being the first on the scene, our mutual friend “a man out walking with his dog” . It’s like one of those English TV murder series where an idyllic little hamlet has a weekly murder rate higher than East L.A. - the man with his dog seems to turn up at the most unfortunate of times and disappears into the fog until the following morning, perhaps for yet another gruesome find unless Rex gets into fight with a swan and the ramble is curtailed before they come upon another corpse.
Maybe the “Leader” will now turn to dog walkers for their source material following the sudden loss….just be careful, that dog ain’t sayin’ nothin’ without a reward.
June 9th, 2008
They can still rely on a local resident who asked not to be named.
A man walking his dog must be a budhist too, as he seems to always be the one that is killed whenever there is a storm. Ah, it is 120 mph winds outside, I think I’ll take the dog for a walk.
June 9th, 2008
the post reminds me of this from the foot and mouth crisis
http://www.bettybowers.com/newsfoot.html
June 9th, 2008
Well at least they’re sourcing their stories from somewhere and not just plagiarising poor defenseless bloggers and their work…
eh? :-P
June 9th, 2008
Will those who are being murdered continued to be “named locally”?
June 9th, 2008
Yes. Also, trucks will still “overturn” and rivers will still “burst their banks”.
June 11th, 2008
Back to ‘the man in the street’
June 19th, 2008
I think you’ll find that the anonymous source is a far more feaky-deeky character than ‘local woman’ could ever be.
He’s anonymous, dammit, so he can be as wild as he wants.
That lends itself to far more speculative nonsense than fact ever could. And local woman is all about the fact.
June 20th, 2008
Yeah. I don’t like those source types. Especially Garda sources and, even worse, informed sources.