Rochdale’s Warrington-based news outlet has been accused of journalistic plagiarism this week after it was caught slapping the phrase “Rochdale’s Chernobyl” onto a headline like a lazy teenager gluing GCSE coursework together from Wikipedia.
The phrase, originally coined by another outlet years ago, was regurgitated by the Rochdale Times with the enthusiasm of a pub karaoke singer murdering Angels for the fifteenth time on a Tuesday night accompanied with stock images of a scary looking sign, because Mike wasn’t allowed travel expenses to drive to the scene like a real reporter. Readers were left wondering if the only thing more dangerous than inhaling asbestos was inhaling recycled headlines.
One local said:
“I thought papers were supposed to investigate things. Turns out they’re just investigating Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if next week they ran a piece called ‘Elvis spotted working in Springhill Hospice, copied straight from the Rochdale Times.”
The site in question, the former Turner Brothers asbestos factory, remains fenced off, hazardous, and filled with enough carcinogens to make a Marlboro rep blush. But the Times seemed less concerned with public health and more concerned with shoehorning in someone else’s catchy apocalypse metaphor.
Down the M62, reporters at the Rochdale Times were quick to offer alternatives: “Rochdale’s Fukushima”, “Rochdale’s Three Mile Island”, or simply “that massive asbestos-riddled death trap we still haven’t sorted out.”
A Rochdale Times spokesperson added:
“We get it, ‘Chernobyl’ sounds sexy and dangerous, like HBO telly. But if you’re going to plagiarise, at least nick something original. The only fallout here is from shoddy journalism.”
Locals remain hopeful that Spodden Park’s redevelopment will one day produce safe housing, but until then, Rochdale’s press corps will continue to spread copy-and-paste pollution across the borough, without so much as a hazard warning sign.
