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I’ve blogged several times already on the dismal phenomenon of “hauntings in the news” — that is, when bona fide media outlets treat ghost stories, hauntings and other paranormal events as though they were truly newsworthy. Some of those incidents have involved a newspaper local to me, the Torrington (CT) Register-Citizen. Unsurprisingly, the RC continues — wrongly! — to report “ghosts” and hauntings as though they were news (WebCite cached article):
If you live in the Burlington [Connecticut] area, no doubt you have heard of the Green Lady of Burlington. But, her only claim to fame is she’s boring!
No tales of being scared out of your pants in the middle of the woods.
No disembodied heads popping out of teapots.
No terrifying bedroom appearances in the middle of the night.
She just slowly fades in, smiles at you like Mona Lisa and then slowly fades out in a green haze.
Wow. What cutting-edge journalism. A news story about a ghost story whose main feature is that it’s totally unremarkable! A non-newsworthy version of a non-story. What an incredible waste of time and space in a newspaper and on a Web site!
This report even includes putative “proof” the Green Lady of Burlington (CT) exists:
Below is a YouTube video of a visit to the graveyard by Barry Dillinger, with the only recorded EVP ever made at this site. She sort of moans. Turn your volume up to hear it. …
I don’t know what you heard, but I didn’t hear a damned thing. But even if I had … who’s to say that it couldn’t have been something uttered by a living (not dead) person off-camera? This video — even if it did contain any discernible “moaning” sound — does not constitute “proof” of the Green Lady of Burlington’s existence. Far from it!
It would be nice if the RC refrained from this kind of bullshit reporting. But given they have a history of offering this kind of “news,” I don’t expect they plan to stop any time soon. More’s the pity.