Wednesday, 16 September 2015

The Press

How they lie


Passive voice, missing details, spontaneous happenings:

HEAD: Jewish Man Dies as Rocks Pelt His Car in East Jerusalem
[ED: ‘‘As rocks pelt his car’’?  How exactly did the rocks go about doing this... get up off the ground and hurl themselves..?]
...
COPY:  A Jewish man died [ED: ‘‘was killed.’’] early Monday morning after attackers pelted the road [ED: ‘‘pelted the road’’?  They were aiming at the pavement?  Please clarify.] he was driving on with rocks as he was returning home from a dinner celebrating Rosh Hashana...
Etc., etc.

Oh, it’s the New York Times. ‘‘Unexpectedly.’’


Elsewhere:
Instapundit: Politics and The English Language
from Skeptical Thinker’s comment:
In the left-wing Hebrew press, the distinction in even greater than in English, because ‘‘progressive’’ writers don’t even use the passive voice, which at least implies somebody threw the rocks or fired the shots.  Whenever possible, they use the ‘‘middle’’ voice (as in Greek), which implies no such actor.  For example, they prefer avanim hit’offefu (literally, ‘‘rocks flung themselves in the air’’) to avanim niz’reku (‘‘rocks were thrown’’).

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 21:34:40 GMT | Comments (99) | Add Comment
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