The News

Purpose

The purpose in writing these alternative texts is to examine the extent to which the message in any original news article is arbitrary and able to be reinterpreted to convey meanings which are potentially inimical to the original message.

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SECOND ALTERNATIVE

A nurse is seeking counselling after having grappled in the middle of the night with an unauthorised presence in the intensive care unit of the Royal Gabriel Hospital. A spokesperson for the hospital has confirmed that the nurse, upon seeing an unauthorised person hovering over the bed of a coma patient, had asked that person to report to administration.

However, the intruder, who was probably male, refused to leave and instead transfixed the nurse with what has since been found to be a narcotic spray. Having thus been stunned, the nurse claims that the intruder then began to inform her that he was the coma patient’s guardian, and that he was waiting and watching over his charge to make sure that the patient said the right thing when he came out of the coma and that he did not confess.

The nurse further claims that the guardian, who looked terribly pale in garments whiter than snow, told her that he was not amused at being caught in the act of guarding a security guard who had been hit over the head with a kalashnikov during a robbery at a poker tournament.

According to the nurse, the guardian also said that he was very well acquainted with the man in the coma who, because he was bored with his job as a ‘heavy’ at a door, had decided on a career change: it seems that the 'heavy', while on duty during the robbery at the poker tournamment, had decided to make his career move by approaching one of the robbers and offering his services to join the heist - whereupon, the robber's use of the kalashnikov.

The hospital spokesperson could not account for the disappearance of the guardian, and would make no further comment as to the welfare of either the nurse or the patient.

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