What newspaper?
I can't find any shit about german cannibals. You haven't been reading the Metro, have you?

I'm speechless that the BBC, supposedly a "proper" news site, produces the front page headline "Inflation hits record 5.2%" ... fucking arseholes, it's only "technically" a record because the system for measuring inflation was changed in 1997. Actual inflation was triple that value in the seventies and a lot higher in the eighties.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:02, 2 replies, latest was 14 years ago)

Doing stats wrong is one of my pet media hates.
The mail today used percentages to describe 10 out of 56.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:04, Reply)

Not only doing them wrong
But misreading them so that they support what you want.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:08, Reply)

Here
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/frenchpolynesiatahiti/8830733/Cannibal-fear-over-German-tourist.html

Not confirmed yet, but it's what his girlfriend was told before being raped by some nice guide.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:05, Reply)

Well, not exactly
Bild have spread horseshit about it maybe being cannibals without the tiniest bit of evidence. They don't even know whose the remains are, although it seems unlikely it isn't him.

Although it's nice to see that shitty english tabloids aren't the only ones to make up "WOAH BAD FORRINS DO BAD THINGS" stories.

And, I realise that this might be splitting hairs somewhat, she wasn't raped.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:14, Reply)

Mmmm...
I haven't read the English version, in the Spanish one she was raped and then tied to the tree. And the guide told her about the cannibals before doing it. So well, it's just her word, I know. In any case, either if she's making it all up or if it really happen; I still find it shocking. Probably more shocking if she's making it up.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:18, Reply)

I have no clue why she would make it up
though him telling her about the cannibals might've been to scare her I guess
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:19, Reply)

Could be
He's nowhere to be found now. Maybe they just really had an accident and he died; but that was his first version of the story and then changed it to the cannibals one; why would he do that?
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:21, Reply)

ah, fair enough
the English and german versions say "sexually assualted" which is a pretty wide range of possibilites, granted, none pleasant, but most categortically not rape. And I might not have got the German translation spot on, my German is shaky, so it could just be a translation confusion.

It's the cannibals bit that annoys me, there is not one tiniest bit of evidence that anything like that was involved (except, it's south sea island forrins, innit, and we all KNOW they do that)

Probably, the guide killed him and burnt the evidence. It's not nice but "man killed by another man, possibly over woman" is not exactly international news.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:22, Reply)

Yeah, it could be just that he killed him
The bits about the cannibals is because she was told that. Of course the guide could have been lying, but that's the reason why it's mentioned on the news, not because it's in a forrinland.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:24, Reply)

It's mentioned in the news
because the tabloids take the opportunity to get "Cannibal" into the headline as they know more people will read it if it does.
(Bazongaloid, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:30, Reply)

Exactly
That's what I think. The word cannibals is what makes the news, not the fact that it was in the Polynesia.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:37, Reply)

And I don't think the news are about
"WOAH BAD FORRINS DO BAD THINGS". It's a story that happened in the Polynesia and that's about as much they talk about forrins there. Maybe you're a bit sensitive about the subject?
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:19, Reply)

The story is reported in a german tabloid
as being about cannibalism when there is fuck all evidence of it. that strikes me as pretty much outrageous stereotyping of the behaviour of polynesians by the german press, no?
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:24, Reply)

It's reported like that
because that's what the girlfriend is saying she was told; not because it was in the Polynesia.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:27, Reply)

Oh come on, do you really believe that?
The giveaway is how it is written. In the Telegraph "attack by cannibals has not been ruled out" (fair enough, a bit over-exaggerated but not too bad)

In Bild and the Mail (directly quoted here) "'It is the suspicion of the authorities that the hunter carved his victim up, ate parts of the body and burned the remainder along with animals cadavers.
He is regarded as a cannibal." ... but conveniently without any evidence or actual quotes from local authorities. That's not journalism, that's xenophobic scaremongering. Oh, and the article title is "Stefan Ramin eaten by cannibals?" Which is hardly a reasonable representation of any facts at all.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:33, Reply)

No, I agree with you
That way of "reporting" by the Mail and Bild is just plain dirty and wrong; but I don't think they're trying to be xenophobic there (for a change); just that blood and scare sell more papers than data.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:36, Reply)

that's certainly part of it.
but neither paper has missed a chance to hammer home repeatedly that "Polynesia has a history of cannibalism yada yada yada all fucking savages" .. if they were genuinely not using it as an opportunity for a dig at different cultures, that bit wouldn't be necessary.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:38, Reply)

Oh, well
I think it's just because it happened there; they say (at least in the Spanish version) that the people in the island are shocked and can't understand this has happened.

Now, in the story about the Chinesse girl, they do talk about how bad China is doing, how materialist they are, how comunism has killed people's souls... I find that a lot more xenophobic.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:42, Reply)

I think that's difference between how Elmundo and the Telegraph reported it
and how Bild and the Mail reported it, which was my point. But, meh, maybe years of exposure to shitty tabloids and their special brand of xenophobia has made me overly sensitive to that kind of thing.

that's interesting in the China one, though, nothing like that has been mentioned in the british stories I've seen, except in direct quotes from chinese people themselves.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:45, Reply)

Well
As I said, I haven't read the Mail, so you're probably right and they're pointing at foreigners as the bad of everything; they wouldn't miss an opportunity like that.

In the China one, yes, most of the criticism comes from the Chinesse themselves, but I bet it wasn't all of them who think like that. I'd like to know how many of the comments were about the bads of the comunism or materialism; and if they were just a small percentage, why are those the only reported on the paper?
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:49, Reply)

As I was discussing with some friends
Similar things happen in Europe too. Not everywhere and not all the time, but you find unsensitive people everywhere (me falling off my bike quite badly and two guys pointing at me and laughing instead of helping). I don't want to believe that the whole of China is rotten; but that most people are scared of helping as they could end up in trouble.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:52, Reply)