"How I accepted my 'childless' life" by Lorna Gibb traces Gibb's journey from infertility to acceptance. I thought it was a great article overall, covering some all-too-familiar territory and insights.
However, I was somewhat taken aback by a disclaimer printed in boldface type below the headline & photo, before the actual text of the article began:
Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.All I could think was "Seriously??!!" As I commented, "They felt it necessary to put a disclaimer on an article about accepting childlessness and to say that it doesn't represent their views??!"
Another commenter responded, "As if childlessness is such a controversial 'point of view'. I hope it's a standard disclaimer and not just for this topic..."
I went over to MSN.com & clicked on a few of the other articles in the Lifestyles section there, ones on topics that I thought some might find controversial in some way, about breastfeeding, veganism, etc. I checked out some other first-person essays in the same section ("My ex-boyfriend helps me raise my child"). I could not find a similar disclaimer on any of them (let alone right up front in bold type!). (And the disclaimer is not present in the source article on Red, suggesting it was added by MSN.com.)
Maybe I'm being overly thin-skinned. Maybe I'm missing something here. But...
In some ways I find this hilarious. In others, infuriating.
Thoughts?
You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.
ReplyDeleteHow ridiculous! I always assume these disclaimers are standard for columns or opinion articles too. So thank you for doing the research for us.
I'm not finding it so hilarious today. Crazy, yes, without doubt. Infuriating? Definitely!
Now why would the portal add this disclaimer only to this article and not to others. I believe a lot of sites and forums add disclaimers as standard practice but to did it sparingly is definitely questionable.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I went back & I did find two more articles from the lifestyles section with the same disclaimer. This is a first-person piece:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/wedding/yes-im-a-bride-to-be-who-had-a-stag-do-%E2%80%93-so-what/ar-BBVbUzA
And an article clearly labelled as "Opinion":
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/travel/disdaining-tourists-is-the-last-permitted-snobbery-%E2%80%93-im-sick-of-self-satisfied-travellers/ar-BBVeveg
Still, not a lot.
Hilarious AND infuriating!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if different editors use different templates? Grasping for reasoning, here.