Wednesday 23 December 2009

Suicide Note But No Reason?

In today's issue of TODAY, an article reports on the sad case of a man who committed suicide at home (reproduced below).



source: TODAY

Apparently, a suicide note was found but the report claims that the cause of the suicide is unknown. This is rather confounding as the man admitted to his gambling habit in the suicide note. The fact that any half-wit would naturally make the connection between gambling and money woes, combined with the ease with which the mainstream media here often make ludicrous leaps of logic to make a host of misleading assertions, raises an eyebrow (two even) towards the contradicting headline.

If a suicide note is not to offer some semblance of a reason, then I don't know what is. Quite obviously, the man in this case was a gambler in money trouble, out of a job in these uncertain times - and it is not difficult to make such a suggestion in the report. When one considers how sensationalism drives our mainstream media, it is a surprise that such a suggestive angle was not employed in this article.

On closer inspection though, it seems the fact that a suicide due to gambling would be negative publicity for the soon-to-be-unveiled Integrated Resorts - which would explain the ambiguity in clearly alluding to the cause. Again, we notice selective reporting from the mainstream media that serves propaganda.

On a separate note, the reporter for this story, Ansley Ng, seems to have been watching too much American sports programmes - there is no 'had beat' in British English, only 'had beaten'.

No comments: