Without wanting to seem flippant over this tragic story, I couldn’t help notice something very strange on on the Daily Mail site today.

Headline: Miss World finalist who had hands and feet amputated after being hit by infection dies

Other than being a very good piece of SEO, this headline is also very matter of fact. The Miss World finalist has died.

And then here’s the first paragraph:

A two-time Miss World finalist whose feet and hands were amputated after contracting a drug-resistant infection has died.

Very straight forward there.

Like most Daily Mail stories, there are comments a plenty (probably down to that great SEO). But something about the comments on this story in particular struck me as a little bit, well, strange:

My heart goes to the beautiful girl, what a tradegy! Praying for her speedy recovery!
Leila, Gibraltar, 22/1/2009 16:11

And another:

Beauty is only in the eyes of the beholder. How she fights this and pulls through will show her true beauty, and that’s the real beautiful and strong person everyone will see; not just what’s on the outside, but the fight inside too. I bet she can do it!

And there’s loads more.

Of course, the reasonable explanation for this is that the original story told of a girl fighting for her life. The comments came in. Then, sadly, the girl lost that fight — and so the story was altered. But now the comments come across as rather haunting. I’ve stuck a picture of the comments on Flickr in the event of them being removed.

Presumably the Mail would have wanted to keep the most up-to-date information on one article page, rather than several new articles whenever a story develops. That makes sense. But surely a development as serious as the death of the subject shouldn’t just be edited?

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