The Washington Post, tortured by a fear of backlash, struggles to find the words to describe today's story of a Detroit muslim who asked some fellow bus passengers whether they were Muslim, and on hearing that they were not, stabbed them. Per
Ace, the first try was:
Police: Man stabs two after asking if they are Muslim.
followed by (after protests):
Police: Muslim man stabs two after discussion about religious beliefs.
Ace's commenters suggested the following alternatives:
Conversation Over Islam Leads to Stabbing, Police Baffled.
Hate Crime Charges Likely After Muslim Man Survives Knife Attack During Religious Argument.
1938: Trains begin transporting Europe's Jewry to unknown locations to the east, after a discussion of religion.
2 comments:
It is very standard overplay/underplay journalism. One chooses words which are technically correct but mislead in one direction or the other.
I took a journalism class my freshman year of highschool, in Manchester, NH, home of one of the most slanted newspapers of all time, the Union Leader. The enjoinders by dear Mrs Langlois, advisor to the school newspaper, to strive for evenhandedness and neutrality, rereading one's own writing to remove prejudicial adjectives and phrasings, was so obvious that I rolled my eyes that it even needed to be mentioned. (I was an annoying highschooler who rolled his eyes a lot.) It was this neutrality that put me off from journalism. I preferred to advocate.
Little did I know that this virtue was already going out 45 years ago, and I could have happily found a career as a dishonest advocate pretending neutrality.
"Sincerity... I can fake that."
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