Mindlessly net surfing, I encountered stories that mildly attracted me, just to see what they were about. They were probably among twenty stories of this kind that I encountered. These two, though, pressed my Rant button.
Take One: Atlanta home demolished
That’s what it says on the Bing search page. MSN, AP News, USA Today, and others are covering the tale with headlines like this one from AP.
Woman returns from vacation to find Atlanta home demolished
Makes it sound to me as if the destroyed home was the place she was living in. But no.
From the article: ‘“It’s been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she said. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”’
It’s been vacant and boarded up for fifteen years. While I admit that someone made a big mistake and demolished a vacant, boarded up home by accident, and that would be upsetting, I think the way the story is projected is wholly misleading.
Take Two: Former Teammates Now Opponents
Yes, this is what’s on ESPN/NFL’s page: a story about two NFL quarterbacks.
TEAMMATES TURNED OPPONENTS
DOLPHINS-EAGLES: 8:20 P.M. ET
The way this story is presented, they make it sound as if the NFL isn’t full of college teammates who get drafted by NFL teams and end up playing against one another.
This article focuses on Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, quarterbacks who played at Alabama. Hurts was the starter. With a record of 28-2 and a national championship, he was highly regarded and respected, and definitely capable. But Alabama was being shut out. So he was pulled and Tua was put into the game.
Gosh, that never happens in a football! Coaches are always very careful about these things, putting players’ feelings and reputations above winning (yes, that is snark). I can’t think of any other time that a player who wasn’t doing well was benched so another player could be tried, neither in college or the pros. (Yes, that was more snark. It’s a snarky kind of day.)
Fast forward to this year. Hurts now plays for the Eagles and lost in the last Superbowl and Tagovailoa quarterbacks the Miami Dolphins. The two will meet again when their teams play today. Hence, the story.
Yes, I read both stories. Fortunately, they’re not major events. Sure, it’s upsetting to the woman to lose her vacant other home this way; I’d be pissed, too, if someone went to the wrong address and tore the place down. And the way the company has handled it (so far) does nothing to redeem them. But no one was hurt.
Likewise, the football story was a small distraction in an otherwise war-weary and politically numb world, a story significant or meaningful to some serious fans of the teams or players involved, but net fodder for the rest of us.
And yes, in a way, I’m doing the same thing: posting net fodder. But I’m doing it to distract myself from doing other things.
Hope it wasn’t too boring. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 
I saw the one about the house demolition this morning and had the exact same response as you did! My first thought was, “Oh no … everything they owned is probably gone!” And then to find out the house had been sitting boarded up and vacant for years … yes, they should be angry over the mistaken demolition and deserve to be repaid the market value of the house, but the headline was intentionally misleading! “If it bleeds, it leads,” said William Randolph Hearst but today’s media adds, “And if it doesn’t bleed, poke it with a knife and make it bleed!”
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