Physics Journalism in The Sun

[mattbell]

You know those check-out stand newspapers with completely made-up articles?  I wonder if thy go above or below celebrity-gossip-rumor mags in the hierarchy of journalistic integrity.  The Sun probably makes more stuff up than the National Enquirer, but they make *important* stuff up. 

My girlfriend bought me one when I was sick in 2004 to cheer me up.  I had never looked inside one.  I found, hidden behind a provocative headline, introduction, and conclusion, a remarkably straightforward though simpleminded article about particle accelerators and the Higgs Boson. 



The rest of the paper looks more like this:

 

(yes, I found this hunting through my storage locker)

Comments

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Considering the length of the article, that's not too bad as a writeup on the ILC (apart from the headline, of course). And as such, it does feel rather out of place. I wonder how they decide what range of stories are appropriate? (Maybe they're like The Onion and brainstorm headlines before writing the articles... except that on occasion they'll come up with a headline that they can actually do a legitimate story on.)

Kim, meanwhile, got a big kick out of the "Jem" ad on the same page. I have a penchant for singing snippets of the Jem theme song at random times, so seeing that next to a particle physics article struck her as very appropriate for me.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Heh... glad you liked it. It's possible they took a pre-existing article off some syndication service and wrapped a header and footer around it. Speaking of the Onion, they should muscle in on the business of the Sun and start peddling *their* lies at the checkout lines.