The latest craze of bumping old stories to prominence on media websites has reached new heights with every item this morning of the Most Popular section on the BBC News website being an archived piece, including a rare report on the revulsion of the Islam world following the beheading of Anne Boleyn in 1536.
Fans of the craze, known as News-Umping, use social media to boost old stories which are often more interesting than the current headline news. Exponents are proudly geeky since considerable research is required to locate old articles.
“It needs a good deal of work as google only goes back about 15 years,” said one young newsumper from behind a bushy beard and thick horn rimmed spectacles, “but the BBC has been around for ever so if you know where to look you can often uncover some real gems.”
“The satisfaction is in beating your rival newsumpers to finding an interesting historical article, then news umping it to the Most Read top ten for all to see.”
Readers of the current top ten will be fascinated to see how so many of the historical articles have amazing similarities to today’s news.
The piece about King Alfred’s cakes includes the first recorded mention of Mary Berry and the story denying the public health danger of the Black Death outbreak has a chilling resonance with the grim misery caused by Reality TV as it creeps into every home.
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