The Echo Does It Again

I love how the Echo always manages to make a mountain out of a molehill.

M27 motorway to be closed eastbound for three days, screams the headline. The article begins: "The eastbound carriageway of the M27 will be completely closed for three days, it has been revealed". Yet the very next sentence clarifies somewhat: "The motorway will be closed between junctions four and five on March 9, 10 and 11." So in one sentence, we've gone from the entire eastbound carriageway being closed to one junction being closed eastbound. Still - three days, what are they thinking?

Ah, hold on... let's check the actual source of the news, namely the Highways Agency website. "The work will be carried out during a 32 hour closure of the carriageway, from 9pm on Saturday 9 to 5.30am on Monday 11 March. Fully signed diversion routes will be in place," say the HA. So basically the road will only be closed for one full day plus a bit of night work, and the full day will be a sunday, when most of the traffic on the eastbound M27 gets off at junction 4 anyway.

This doesn't actually annoy me - the Echo, like most tabloids, should be taken with an extremely large helping of salt. What annoys me is that I've already had an email at work (sent to the entire department) from some hysterical loon "warning" people who drive to work about the traffic, making it very clear that they've only read the headline and not the article, and certainly haven't bothered to check the information source. Is it any wonder that urban myths circulate so easily when people actions are based on such inaccurate and incomplete information?