and finally The news that never was


Chris Proctor ponders over nothing making the news – suddenly


I


’ve become a great enthusiast of the “Suddenly – nothing happened!” story, also known as “SNH syndrome”. We are enjoying a boom period for the phenomenon and I’m grateful for news


outlets that update online stories every few minutes. A Champion example of the SNH story concerned Sarah, the MP for Rotherham who resigned from the shadow cabinet on 28 June and rejoined a few weeks later. Most of us didn’t know Ms Champion had gone and, all of a sudden, she was back! If you look up “shadow minister for preventing abuse” you will find a note attached saying she is the incumbent, and that she was “preceded by herself”. Replacing yourself is a top-notch example of nothing having happened. I also hugely enjoyed the marvellous exposé about


a woman whose office wasn’t burgled. MP Seema Malhotra was moving offices and had taken her boxes away. Then, all at once, someone went into the empty, unlocked room and took nothing. Riveting stuff, well worth a few pars. Just like the tale of an actress I’d never heard of who was reported as not being missing. A lead story on the BBC site said Honeysuckle Weeks wasn’t around for a few hours, but then was. She was taking tea with a relative. Less gripping, but equally illustrative of SNH, was a report in London’s Evening Standard, a periodical with enough “traffic chaos” stories to give commuters hypertension. A second page lead in August disclosed advice from Scotland Yard’s assistant commissioner – Britain’s most senior counter-terror officer. In the event of a terrorist attack, Londoners should “run away as far as possible” then “hide”. That’s what happens to an in-depth interview if


you’re in a rush. The Mirror featured an interesting SNH with its story that a lion might be on the prowl in Cornwall. This started out well, with a police probe after a lorry driver said he’d seen a big cat. The law enforcers then appeared to ruin it by saying they had found no trace of a big cat in the area. End of story? Not a bit of it. A second lorry driver came onto the scene with news of the sighting of a headless deer. Mercy! The narrative,


unlike the deer, had fresh legs. Its discovery “sparked fresh fears” about deadly animals prowling the duchy on a scale unseen since murderous hounds beset the Baskerville area of neighbouring Devon.


In fact, nothing happened. But it was sudden. The Daily Express weather reporters are great masters of SNH. They reported at the start of the summer that UK thermometers were poised to reach 35oC (95F) in August, with blistering temperatures until of heat would sweep up from peans a si


her reporters are grea orted a


meters w blistering tem September. A huge surge of hea


the continent (those Europeans at it again) and it would trigger volatile and explosive thunderstorms, with torrential downpours and frenzied lightning strikes. Yes, nothing happened. Al. Although, on reflection, this is not a classic SNH scenario. It is more of a “suddenly nothing will happen”, an interesting variant much favoured in industrial reporting in the few places where that the pastime still exists. Threatened strikes slide effortlessly from potentially ruining British industry, holding countries to ransom and destroying the economy to being suspended, called off and forgotten. As details of dormant stagnation are breathlessly imparted, every effort is made to


ould d frenzied ligh interesting v


porting in the fe till exists. Threa from poten coun


om d


ensure all available mud sticks to the union concerned – just as if something had happened. Sport is fertile ground for the SNH


d stic to the union


omething h d for the SN


phenomenon, especially around the Olympics when the template is “we might win, we could win”. Its attraction is the elasticity of the period that something doesn’t happen. Nicely handled, sport can run for months.


we might win, w e elastic


t h hs.


A word of caution, though. There is a perfectly reasonable variant, usually referred to as theually referred to as the “something really and trul codicil. A fine specimen w


hough. There is a perfectl medallists shock-horrored an accoun


truly never happened” n was when four US gold ored an account of a


robbery at gunpoint. Brazilian police suggested “inaccuracies” and suggested the quartet migh have confused being violen


vandalising a toilet. Then they all w The desperate search for ne


that no trivia needs to go unheralded so long as the word count’s good. “What happened?” “Nothing.” “Write it down.”


Brazilian police suggested ggested the quartet might violently robbed with them hen they all went home. h for news updates means o go unheralded so long as d.


26 | theJournalist


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