Thursday 26 November 2015

The Nadir of ghost "news" stories. *sigh*


Well they finally did it.

The Mirror has finally achieved its goal to publish the worst ghost story/photo possible, based on a story published originally in the Gazette Live the day before, both articles wrote by Mirror group churnalist Laura Love. The  date16th November 2015 must go down in history as the day the Mirror lost all rights to claim the prefix "news." Its now just paper. Except for when it is online, then it isn't even that.

Take a look at the image that captivated Love's keen journalistic instincts so:



See that white shapeless blob at the end of the corridor? The one that resembles a human figure in almost no respect? Yep ghost. Of a doctor no less. Why a doctor? Because the photo was taken in a hospital, and it looks vaguely like a white coat despite being almost exactly the same shade of white as the surrounding walls.

So does the article offer anything else in support of this alleged "ghost" photo taken at Poole Hospital?

Lots of subjective feelings and bad grammar, about the hospital, which closed in 1989, from visitors to the Gazette's facebook page:

“Remember going up here on a night loads of us it was a creepy place.”
“Was spooky, few experiences. After Poole was closed Cleveland Police used Grey Towers for dog training. No dog would go into the chapel would not go past the door the police handler could not believe it.”
“I done security up there on permanent nights when it closed down and believe me I did not look forward to my shifts.”
So abandoned Hospitals are a bit creepy. I'll concede that. So what? Should this persuade that ghosts roamed those halls? The Mirror thinks it should as does one commenter they quote earnestly, but I think may have been taking the piss:

“I’m convinced.”

I'm not.

The fact is this story doesn't even qualify as news. In addition to comprising mainly of people's opinions on a FB thread, now deleted for some reason, the pictures were taken in the 1990s, the hospital itself was demolished soon after.

All this results in a news story that is more worthless than that "baby pushed by ghost" trash from earlier this year. All involved should be ashamed. I'd normally link to any news story that I cover, but frankly, no one should be assisting in the Mirror's efforts to euthanise Journalism.

It seems that the Mirror's readership agrees, there isn't a single comment in the story's comment section as of 26/11/15.

Maybe Love should have a celebrity into the mix to increase interest.

Yahoo news reports on 24th November, that Khloe Kardashian believes her home is being haunted by the ghost of her late father Robert. This has seemingly been confirmed by "Hollywood medium" Tyler Henry, who visited Khloe's home and "got an image" of someone smelling a tie.

For Khloe this is conclusive enough:

“What if it’s dad? My dad had hundreds of ties and I always smell his stuff. Like, I have a jacket and his shirts and I haven’t ever washed them and I just always, like, smell them.”
 This isn't an uncommon thing, and its something that the Kardashian mentions in her recent autobiography. I would say that this is just evidence that it doesn't matter how rich and famous you are, you're just as vulnerable to rationalising what is said to you by a psychic, often as a result of a desire or need to believe that your loved ones are still around you, to make appear as if they have said something significant.

Tyler's prognostication seems even weaker in the context of this quote from his website:






 These "specific, detail-orientated specifics" seemed to be conspicuous by their absence in his visit to Khloe's home.

Tyler's site is filled with the usual blathering psychics offer, powers connected to dying grandparent, assisting the police, no actual evidence of this of course.... par for the course.

Before we sympathise with Khloe too much, its worth considering that this encounter with Henry was not impromptu, it was organised and filmed for the E! tv series "Keeping up with the Kardashians." Henry himself is the star of an upcoming show on E! "Hollywood Medium" starting in January. I've got to be honest, Henry may be on to a winner here, doing readings for celebrities should be like shooting fish in a barrel with the amount of information available on the internet.

The whole story is nothing more than an advertisement for an episode of the Kardashians, which is in turn a promotion for Tyler's show.

It seems like for certain people nothing is off limits for purposes of cross-promotion.

No. No thumbs up for you Tyler, you're a parasite.




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