Silly or sick?

Wise Words: silly/sick

It's August, so the silly season is officially in full swing. I didn’t coin the expression “silly season”. You can look it up in the Oxford Dictionary of English. It’s defined as “the season when newspapers often publish trivial material because of the lack of important news”. The German equivalent is Sommerloch. I think the English expression sums up the season so much better.

One reason that there are so few newsworthy stories is that parliament takes its summer recess in August. Often, the only political information we get is a short report on where politicians are spending their holidays. In case you’re wondering, Gordon Brown is doing volunteer work as part of his holiday in Scotland. This is clearly a move to boost his popularity in the polls before the next election. A serious matter, you would think. The Mirror filed the story under the “silly season” category when it reported that Brown’s task would not involve "wearing an orange jacket". Then again, the story would be even sillier if he did.

This year, however, the focus is moving away from silly — and towards sickly. Along with all the serious articles and guidelines about the H1N1 flu virus, newspapers and websites still have room for the trivial side, too. In this type of story, journalists usually write swine flu, rarely H1N1. For example:

• Teddy bear picnics banned as swine flu rules hit nurseries
  The Times

• Swine flu ad man gets bug
  The Sun

I preferred it when the stories were just silly — or serious about the sick. But editors aren’t silly-billys — they run these sickly stories because they know they might help to push up sales and page impressions during the summer lull. The papers sell because we want to find out how to keep the bugs at bay. It's fun to be silly in the summer — but nobody wants to be sick.

If you do get sick, don't pass the virus on. Watch the swine flu ad man before he got sick for tips on how to catch it, bin it and kill it.

I'm on holiday now and will have a new blog post for you on 1 September. I hope you stay well this summer.