The speed of news
Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.
“I first saw the report of the bridge closure in a neighbourhood message group at seven in the morning. Within ten minutes, six people had shared it. The photograph showed barriers across the road, but no date was visible. I checked the council's travel page before changing my route. The photograph was from repairs two years earlier. By then, the original message had travelled into three other groups, where people were discussing an accident that had not happened.
A fast message can arrive wearing the borrowed authority of a familiar name. I trusted the neighbour more readily than I would have trusted a stranger, though neither had taken the photograph. Speed made the story feel current; repetition made it feel confirmed. Those are impressions, not evidence. I now try to pause before forwarding a useful-looking warning. Checking a date is less exciting than being first to help, but help that sends someone the wrong way is only haste with good intentions. The correction deserves the same energy as the original claim.”
Source B: an original nineteenth-century-style letter or account, written for practice; this is not an archival document.
“The telegraph has given rumour a most efficient horse. A report which once exhausted itself between neighbouring streets may now arrive from a distant town before anyone has established what occurred there. I do not deny the great benefit of prompt intelligence. I ask only that promptness should not be mistaken for proof. An error delivered swiftly remains an error, though it may acquire importance from the expense of its journey.
Our newspaper recently repeated a report of a warehouse fire which proved to concern another building in another year. The correction occupied three lines beneath a shipping notice; the first announcement had commanded half a column. This is an unequal hospitality to truth and falsehood. Editors should lend their corrections the visibility they lend their surprises. The public cannot be expected to unlearn loudly what it has been corrected about in a whisper.”
Refer to both sources. Infer the differences in the inaccurate reports and how they spread. Write a summary supported by details from both sources.
160 exam-style questions on AQA GCSE English Language 6.2 Content, covering 6.2.1 Reading sources: non-fiction and literary non-fiction, 6.2.2 Time periods of the sources, 6.2.3 Choice of genre, and 6.2.4 Section B writing task. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.