Well, the Australian mainstream media are at it again, using misleading headlines to try and trumpet misfortune upon the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Here’s the latest effort:
| NBN Contractor To Lay Off 160 Workers |
And this is how it looked on the front of The Age website:
The blurb says:
“NBN contractor to lay off 160 workers: Construction company Silcar is set to lay-off 160 employees [in] January next year.”
The headline and blurb tries to scream out “Hey look! NBN employees being laid off!”. It makes no mention of the fact that the lay-off has nothing to do with the NBN at all.
Here’s what the article says:
“CONSTRUCTION company Silcar, which has won a significant slice of the NBN building contract, is set to lay-off 160 employees [in] January next year.”
“The company said in a brief statement that it would terminate the employment of 160 staffs (sic) after it lost the maintenance services contract with BlueScope Steel at its Western Point site.”
So nothing to do with the NBN in any way. So why do the headline?
Yup – just like the last one I spotted – it’s all about sensationalist bullshit.
How about reporting the news accurately without sensationalising?
Media fail, once again.