Remember when you were in school assembly as a child and your head teacher told you some story that probably wasn't true (though you no doubt believed it at the time) that acted as a warning against some dangerous behaviour or action. A story about someone getting hit by a train because they were foolishly playing on the railway tracks perhaps, used as a scare story to stop you from playing on the railway tracks. Or a story warning of the dangers of playing with electricity. Or taking drugs, or so on and so forth.
It was similar with those old public information adverts. Or adverts warning of the dangers of drink driving. A gruesome dramatisation of what potentially could go wrong when people engage in such reckless and dangerous behaviour. Of course, the stories would always have much more weight or impact on the audience if they came with the label "this was based on a true story". Or if they were presented in a way where the audience would simply assume that it was a real event.
Anyway, many things in the news today are like that. Tweet. Stories, often not real, but presented as true to guide the audience or general public in their behaviour or thinking. Much like a teacher using a moralistic tale to guide their children. Hopefully it's being done with the same goodwill and intention in this larger pupil/teacher arena. Of course, the question then to ask is who teaches the teachers? What if they're the ones that have it wrong? And do they have the authority, moral or otherwise, to be doing all this?
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