to wonder if journalists think before they write money saving articles?

[cakeorwine]

Not going to do the link as it's clickbait.

But in the Express, there's a headline saying "Save £100s by doing this simple trick when charging your phone"

A tech company said that people should charge their phone at night if they are on Economy 7 as it's cheaper. Which is true - electricity is cheaper at off peak hours.

An Express journalist has done the maths - unless it came in the press release.

Electricity costs 34 p per KWH. Daily Phone charging is about 2 hours - so according to the article it costs 68p per day, £21 a month, £268 a year to charge a phone.

They have made massive error. If they actually took the time to think a bit and then think about their own bills at home, they would actually be very disappointed in the cost of charging a smart phone versus what it actually costs.

Which is about 0.1p an hour. Or 0.2 p a day (about 2 watts of power)

I can just see people worrying about this cost though and deciding to charge overnight - which is not really recommended.

Be careful. Liz Truss will be spouting the 'save £100s by charging your phone overnight' nonsense soon, if her grasp of maths is anything to go by.

Her chancellor will shut her up - he is very diplomatic apparently.

You're mistaking 'copywriter/content writer' for 'journalist'.

Much of the online content you read, that exists as a platform for advertising that pays for the publication to continue existing - is not journalism. It is copy/content, produced by anyone who does that with 5 minutes to spare.

Now some of us would put in the graft and do the research and ensure the copy is actually sensible (though, I write copy that is factual stuff for big brands, and not filler for online versions of tabloid trash)... and some will write this total wank knowing that no ones checking it, no one is going to care and they'll get paid.

There will be people being told to produce a certain word count on a topic, the topic may be VERY vague indeed and it is not unheard of to be told to just invent it if necessary.

It is these same people producing the 'scraped from Mumsnet/Facebook/NtMms' content too.

Tis the way of the world.. you all wanted your news online not in a physical newspaper. Most of us don't want our news behind a pay-wall, this is the result.

Anything marketed as a "hack" or "amazing" is normally either everyone's been doing it for years or common sense.

I remember as a child picking up a magazine in a doctors and reading an advice column about saving money in the 80s. 1. Save money on clothes pegs by buying two lines and twisting them together and sticking the clothes between then. 2. When you're baking, scraping the last bit of white out of the shell with a finger to make a bigger cake for the same amount of eggs.

I went home, and asked dm if we could bake and was staring at the shell trying to work out where the amazingly more white was hidden in the shell that I could get out with my finger. 🤣🤣🤣
I also worked out that buying a second clothes line at the rate dm got through clothes pegs would start saving money after about 30 years. (yes, I did like my maths)

I saw this summer an ad for an "amazing life hack mum does that transforms lunches."
It was put the waterbottle in the freezer the night before so it freezes and you have an automatic ice pack. I think my Mum should have patented that in 1979 which was when we got our first fridge with an ice box because she's done it since then.

My life hack is never click on any of these links that say "X did this, Y happened and everyone was totally amazed/called for police."
It's always done in about 45 slow loading pages of rubbish and I've never come across any where I have even been minorly surprised. It'll save you lots of time.

I don't know viz top tips but I am getting 5 minute crafts vibes from lots of publications lately😂

You all wanted your news online not in a physical newspaper.

The crossword lovers amongst us don't! We still buy actual papers in my house. I cannot do a crossword unless I have a pen in my hand.

Yeah, but actually that makes it worse 🫣. People will just believe it.

House Fires are going to be a worry this year with people blindly following 'hacks' (using tea lights under plant pots for the heat' & cheap candles left unattended. Or worse still burning wood indoors in chimeras etc.

I imagine mine would be on fire.

Battery is completely screwed. Mine now lives 'on charge' & the iPad is no better. Probably need to replace both tbh, but can't be arsed with the hassle.

Chimeras would indeed be a massive issue

(Joking. Loving this typo)

Much of the online content you read, that exists as a platform for advertising that pays for the publication to continue existing - is not journalism. It is copy/content, produced by anyone who does that with 5 minutes to spare.

Not print media in this case, but I saw something on YouTube about how loads of regional TV news stations had identical output - with some silly, inconsequential item delivered with the exact same script, same 'impromptu' jokes and by-the-by comments etc.

You wouldn't have expected most of them to even pick up a lighthearted local story from thousands of miles away in the first place, had they been investigating themselves; but they were so obviously being fed the stories from some central syndicator.

Well this is what we get when journalists are paid peanuts as everyone wants to consume media for free. You get monkeys.

The national papers are working with a skeleton staff and don't have time to think. It is no wonder that this kind of rubbish goes out into the world.

At least you could train the chimera to keep you warm with its fiery breath

Only if you are lucky enough to get something fire breathing like the Greeks imagined. With my luck I would end up with some ridiculous mix of rat, flying cocroach and elephant😂