Editor Reports: The Sun’s Facebook Headline

A headline in today’s edition of The Sun claims that “Facebook spreads syphilis”….no mention of My Space though.

The actual story itself is a lousy piece of journalism in which a Professor in the North has conducted a very small case study which he claims reveals that show a connection between using Facebook and syphilis. Professor Peter Kelly conducted his case study in Durham, Teeside and Sunderland and showed that people in these areas were 25% more likely to log-on to social networking sites and somehow get syphilis…what the Sun is trying to say is people are organising sex meet-ups over the sites and having unprotected sex which is leading to a rise in syphilis and the such like.

Funny though how the Sun singles out Facebook and has it within its headline and not My Space. But ah MySpace is part of the Rupert Murdoc Empire isn’t it, just like The Sun. So of course the Murdoc Empire would take any chance to attack its biggest rival – in terms of social networking sites – and so Facebook was used. The story is, of course, a load of old rubbish and laughable really.

A small study on that scale isn’t conclusive on any subject it could cover. However, we’ll play the Sun at its own game and claim we ran a small study on people’s reading habits, just 30 people were involved in the study, and it concluded The Sun is the least popular paper in the country. Now how easy would it be for us to actual do that; easy. Would it really reflect opinion across the country, no. But such small surveys are often used to “prove” things when in fact they do anything but.

Still on a lighter note the headline did make me chuckle and provide a bit of light relief on this dull morning.