The journalists seem to have pitched this story in a positive manner, but despite a fantastic photo which is shows indisputable evidence of negligence, the angry readership who bother to post replies on the DM largely still don't get it.

For instance, poor Nathan from Sheffield isn't blessed with much between his ears when he writes: "There's too much health and safety in this country and what a rat that passer by is snitching!"

That is most definitely a case of the 'anti-elf & safety' Brigade gone mad!!

Keep in mind that the business of newspapers is to sell newspapers. So they are always looking for good stories, ones that will make people continue to buy their newspaper. This is one reason why actions such as the HSE’s ‘Mythbusters’ will never have the success in changing attitudes that we need. It is after the story has broken and defensive.
So perhaps we need to get more positive stories out there, showing how health and safety has saved lives or prevented ill health. If we can make them interesting enough to the general reader perhaps even the Daily Mail will print them. It will take time and effort but it might eventually just change attitudes.
After all, if we don’t get the good news out is it any wonder that all we get is the bad news? So what is IOSH doing to spread the word about the positive effects of health and safety? How many ‘good news’ press releases has IOSH put out recently>
Chris

I like the comment that you can easily jump down 9 foot which might be true but here we are talking about FALLING 9 foot which can severely injure you. It confirms what I have always believed; that the readers of these newspapers don't get it because they lack any sort of imagination( which is one of the qualities you need to do H&S correctly - foreseeable = imaginable)

A Kurdzeil and Pikeman,

The posters responding to the news stories are generally NOT Daily Mail readers, but just internet trolls who login to the website.
They probably don't work and so don't have any real understanding of the real hazards of work.
They spend their days posting ignorant or wind-up messages everywhere, particularly on Yahoo news pages which are very often deliberately dumb stories which feed the trolls.

JohnW