scaremongering - dangerous places
1/12/2008
some media outlets have nothing better to do than scare people. the telegraph recently published a list of the top 20 dangerous countries. amongst them were predictable results including iraq and afghanistan. somalia also made the list, which is reasonable enough. however, the list also had thailand, india (thanks to mumbai), haiti, jamaica, pakistan, and mexico.
the reason most of these countries made the list is not because they’re genuinely dangerous, but because there’s no british embassy or because of a few isolated events. mostly, rather than focusing on serious dangers, the article is quoting possible hurricanes (haiti) and street crime (mexico) as a reason not to go there.
and surprisingly, somalia is not on the list … personally, i’d rate somalia much higher than most countries … including nigeria, burundi and zimbabwe (which were all on the list).
anyway, rather than doing any serious research, media outlets just throw together a list of places they think are dangerous … based on generalised information. instead, let’s focus on the violence in our own countries … looking at the number of people who are mugged or pickpocketed in soho every year (that counts as street crime) or the fact that in detroit there are over 400 murders a year … possibly more violent than south africa, which made the list due to the number of murders and rapes.
seriously … most journalists these days are retards … and what the hell is with this ‘top 10′ and ‘top 20′ list rubbish???? no newspaper that takes itself seriously should ever publish lists of the ‘top anything’.
