Talentless hack repeats last week’s story

by Sue Bailey

This post was written in February 2007; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

If you’ve got what you think is a good story, keep milking it. The Sunday Times today repeat last week’s lie that “shill bidding is common on eBay”.

They follow up the story of the one single shilling seller they were able to find, with the astonishing news that he’s been suspended from eBay. And then with long and pretty boring detail of how he received more than 400 bids from an account registered in the name of his ex-wife. The ex-wife denies all knowledge. The seller says the bids must have been real. It all reads rather like one of those “About Me” pages where an eBayer tells the story of every single one of the negative feedbacks they’ve ever received, or where a buyer and a seller take their silly argument onto a public message board. Or maybe like two five year olds arguing in a playground. If this feeble non-story is what passes for journalism in the ST, I think I’ll stick with the News of the World.

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Author: Sue Bailey
Posted at: Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Filed Under Uncategorized
 

Comments

One Response to “Talentless hack repeats last week’s story”

  1. On the inherent depravity of postlapsarian bibliopolic endeavors. at Bibliophagist on February 6th, 2007 3:23 pm

    [...] So there may be a problem with “wide-spread” shill bidding on eBay. The problem may need the ministrations of academic research to correct. Or reports of the problem may be seriously overblown. [...]

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