How to mislead readers

Headline of the day:

Cause of death: Nintendo Wii

I’ll get to the headline later. First, about the story.

I was able to walk in and get a Nintendo Wii on launch day (after waiting an hour to get in the door of the store). Then again, I did the sensible thing and pre-ordered it to ensure I got one. Since it’s extremely hard to get one now, with just about everywhere sold out of Wii stuff, people are resorting to dumb radio competitions:

The promotion, titled “Hold Your Wee for a Wii”, challenged contestants to drink as much water as possible without having to urinate. The “last man standing” would win a brand new, hard to find, Nintendo Wii.

Hey, sounds promising!

The rules were simple: Drink an 8 ounce bottle of water every 15 minutes. Tap out if you couldn’t take it or keep going until a winner emerged.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Strange, who was doing this for her three kids, water intoxication kicked in, according to the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office.

After the contest, Jennifer called her place of work with a horrible pain in her head. “She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad,” Rios said. “She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her.”

The body was found by Strange’s mother, who was alerted of her daughters pain by her supervisor.

Sad, tragic and unnecessary, yes. But it’s also a stupid competition. Surely it would have been easier to simply pre-order a Wii so you’re definitely going to get one when the next shipment arrives, and just pay for the convenience. I know which option I’d take; the lazy one.

Now, about that headline. How stupid and misleading. The Nintendo Wii itself did not contribute at all to the death of Jennifer Strange. Sure, it was a prize desirable enough to make people participate in the competition, but she did not die as a direct result of a Nintendo Wii.

Cause of idiocy: Prolonged exposure to teh intarwebs!!!!11