Is the Daily Mail trying to scare us to death?
From the newspaper that brought you ‘Poison in the kitchen…How tap water could damage your brain, blind or even kill you’:
“You can’t switch them off. They’re packed with inflammable insulation that can give off toxic gas. Meet the most dangerous appliance of all…
Could your fridge burn your house down?“
So yells the Daily Mail, which presumably starts with the headlines, then goes looking for supporting material.
It could be argued that an electric fireplace is a more ‘dangerous appliance’ than a fridge. Or a gas cooker.
In fact, the Mail can’t seem to make up its mind.
On June 14 the paper revealed ‘How your washing machine or dishwasher could set your house on fire’.
A month earlier, it was dishwashers again: ‘Do you have a danger dishwasher? Hundreds of thousands of fire risk appliances’.
In October it was ovens:
‘Is there a killer in your kitchen? Ovens linked to the gassing of ten people. Fridges and tumble dryers blamed for house fires.’
In 2010 the paper reported on
‘Killers in your kitchen: Gender-bending packaging, exploding floor cleaners and toasters more deadly than sharks‘.
In 2013 the Mail said ‘Millions of death-trap appliances are sitting in homes‘, while in 2014 it revealed, er, ‘Millions of dangerous electrical devices are lurking in homes‘.
Don’t you just hate it when electrical devices ‘lurk’?
Meanwhile, the Mail’s worthless health pages have warned that too much sleep can kill you, and asked important questions about sausages.
On and on it goes. As the Mail might put it,
Is the Daily Mail trying to scare us to death?
There may well be a problem with fridges bursting into flames, and journalism can be an essential tool in protecting people from dangerous products.
But this does not require that a newspaper try to frighten people or treat them like idiots.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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25 Responses to “Daily Mail says fear your fridge – ‘the most dangerous appliance of all’”
Selohesra
Good grief – you really do have an issue with Daily Mail. If you don’t like it then don’t read it (I don’t read it) – but I don’t see any problem with warning people that electrical equipment can be dangerous and that it is a sensible precaution to maintain it in good condition.
georgied
My fridge gave me cancer but thankfully three months later it cured it. Do you want to see photos of my fridge frolicking in a bikini, showing off it’s new beach body after it’s recent split from the dish washer?
D Ash
OMG! The very air we breathe can kill us! The fleas on my cat can kill me! The spider hiding in my bunch of bananas can kill me! My wife could snap unexpectedly and kill me! My PC could grow arms and hands which could grab hold of my neck and kill me! The water which is essential for my very life could get into my lungs and kill me! Wait . . . . back up one! Really?
Okay, Life itself most definitely will kill me, so I guess I’ll wait for that. ho hum
{;-)
Cole
Most sentient people have an issue with the Mail. It’s both vicious and ludicrous. And it has a 100 year history of nasty reaction, including enthusiasm for the Blackshirts and Nazis.
/O43 |_|K19!!
The left won’t stop complaining about the Daily Mail until they get the power to censor non bien pensant points of view in the media.