Saturday 18 July 2009

Cat dies and joins custard shortage mum and exhausted fish on the great local non-news list


First there was the famous Whitstable Times "Whitstable mum in custard shortage" story. Then the tale, and exclusive picture, of a dead fish headlined: "Exhaustion blamed for Hertford fish death" in the East Herts Herald.
Now The Journalism Hub blog had discovered another contender for best non-news story in a local paper:"Tributes as popular Lichfield cat dies" .
The Lichfield Mercury reports the death of Spike the cat, who was popular with the neighbours and was once sent a Christmas card.
We all like animal stories and Spike was obviously a well liked moggie, but the death of a cat isn't exactly Nick Davies is it?
Maybe the sad story of Spike should have been spiked.

Confession: I don't want to sound too snooty about the local press. When I was a reporter on the Linconshire Echo I wrote a story about a hole in the road which, to my shame, ended up as a page lead. Luckily, that was before the internet and the story only lives on in my memory.

1 comment:

George Dearsley said...

Reminds me of the famous local paper headline..."Hole in road, council looking into it."
Great stuff, Jon.