In a post titled “Let’s Play ‘What’s Wrong With This Headline’” Historiann says (all emphasis hers.)
OK, kids–here’s today’s challenge: “Couple, their 3 kids found dead in Maryland home.“
Who or what might have killed an entire family? Was it carbon monoxide? Botulism? World War II ordinance discovered in the sandbox too late? (I’m humming the Jeopardy theme while you click and read.)
Time’s up!
If I were the grandparent who discovered my daughter and grandchildren murdered by my son-in-law, I sure as heck wouldn’t like the news dubbing the murderer and my daughter a “couple,” and the senseless slaughter of my grandchildren as being “found dead” instead of “murdered by their father.”
Yeah, while not everyone’s as thrilled about the 50th anniversary of Strunk and White, this particular form of passive construction is getting a little stale.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that (statistically speaking) is that in less than a week they’ll have another chance to practice headlining the next such story using active construction.
Seriously! If the mainstream can’t even accurately describe what’s happening how on the big blue marble are they going to be able to address it? As Historiann put it in her piece
Why isn’t this considered a national public health emergency? Where are the ad campaigns encouraging people not to keep guns in their homes, and urging men to seek counseling if they take their anger out on their family members? (Hey–it’s worked so far with drunk driving and smoking–maybe not so much with the anti-drug campaigns.)
The irony is that the murderers almost invariably believe owning firearms protects “their” wives and children from… strangers!
%@*$#!
Submitted by 2866 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-04-20 15:56.
Well, the firearms that I own do protect me and my daughter from strangers...she was stalked in our own yard until she started packing heat every time she went outside......
Guns do make killing people easier, but removing guns from law-abiding people unfortunately doesn't take guns away from criminals. There was a recent news story about a man who had procured a weapon illegally and went to shoot his family---but was instead shot by his wife with a legal firearm.
I carry. Almost everywhere I can. I've been raped. It WON'T happen again....
[Hi Lisa. I've never said guns should be removed from homes. People... mostly men... also murder their families with axes, knives, gasoline, and carbon monoxide. The problem, therefore isn't the means, and therefore isn't firearms. In fact, fretting about non-existent suggestions to "take guns away" instead of addressing the actual causes of family massacres would be an even bigger in-denial red herring than usual, right? Right. --fl]
Submitted by 2866 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-04-20 18:30.
Sometimes I think Recaptcha is making fun of me: "inhale lameness"
I can go with the "couple" thing. The reporter should have written "Man, wife and three children" instead of "couple" if it wasn't known for sure that they weren't estranged.
However.....
If the reporter had written "murdered by their father" the editor would have:
1. Deleted it at roughly the speed of light
2. Called or emailed the reporter and said "What the %*&$ is wrong with you?!"
Reporters who care about doing their jobs properly write ONLY what is *known* by them or told to them by the police, witnesses or victims in a crime story.
"Found dead" is apparently all that could be ascertained right away, so that's what was written. The reporter really couldn't even say that they were "killed in" the home because for all he/she knew, they were killed elsewhere and left there. Writing something because it "sure looks that way to me" is just not done by anyone who cares about being a professional. If I don't know something to be a fact, it's not common knowledge or a direct quote from a reputable source, it's not reporting, it's gossip, editorial or fabrication.
That's why even if someone was caught in the act of committing a crime, has been arrested and charged or even confessed, I can make reference to those facts, but I STILL can't refer to that person as "the murderer/thief/arsonist/kidnapper" because there's been no *conviction* yet. No matter how obvious it might seem to "everybody" that someone is guilty, in this country, we don't say it until a jury or the police do.
Just last summer in Memphis there was literally a houseful of people - nine adults and children, I think - shot and stabbed. It took the police forever to work out whether any of the people who were dead had also participated in the killing and whether anyone else had come and gone because weapons were found in the house with the bodies. All the paper could say right away was that this beyond-horrible thing had happened and that all of these people had been "found dead."
The matter is complicated even more when the police withhold information about causes of death and weapons used because they don't want the suspect to know how much they know.
"Man kills family, then himself" gets the point across, but the reporter didn't know it to be true at the moment and so, couldn't write it. That's why you see all those clunky references to the "alleged" this or that in crime stories, even though that's scarcely any better because "allege" means "to accuse without proof."
If it turned out that (rare, but it does happen) someone else had shot all five of them and dropped the weapon there, or that things had happened some other way, every news outlet that said the family was "killed by" the father might need to get their attorneys on the phone.
A lot of people see only how fantastic all this "fast" and "free" news online is. The problem is that NOWNOWNOW!!! is so important that the idea of waiting an hour or two, when you might know a little more, is absolutely out of the question now. After all, you can always go back and update it. You have to go with what you know and sometimes you actually know very little. So, we get stuff like...this.
(I'm really going to try to knock it off with these super-long comments.)
Submitted by 2866 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-04-20 21:51.
You quoted Historiann as asking:
Where are the ad campaigns encouraging people not to keep guns in their homes, and urging men to seek counseling if they take their anger out on their family members?
In New Zealand there currently is such an ad campaign - ads on tv and bus shelters among other places, and a website. It's got a dual focus: on the one hand violence is not okay, on the other handing asking for help is okay -- whether you're the victim or the abuser. One of the ads has a man talking about how he was going over the top and realised he needed help so that he wouldn't (keep?) hurting his family.
(That recaptcha must be psychic: it says "20 tempers".)
Submitted by 2866 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-04-21 01:21.
*encouraging people not to keep guns in their homes*
was, actually, what I was referring to....I agree completely with campaigns encouraging men to seek counseling, having been married to a few of them....and for years, kept no firearms due to my now ex's temper.
Unfortunately, what usually happens is that people like me, who probably should've shot the idiot I was married to when he raped me, give up their guns and the people with problems keep them....
Submitted by 2866 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-04-21 14:46.
Here in Philly, I don't remember husband and wife or girl and boy friend being described as a couple when one kills the other or the family. Sadly one of the partners killing the other is often too common, where the murder rate is one of the highest in the nation. Family killings are becoming more common recently, but more outside of Philly. If they say father, they usually say that he allegedly killed the family or that it appears to be the father.
A few years ago two toddlers shot themselves to death with a gun their parents had in the house; one with an illegal gun an the other with a legal one.
In theory I have no philosophical reason one shouldn't keep a gun in the home. I always felt the idiot shouldn't have a gun, but the problem is; no one knows when a person will become an idiot. Whether that would be an irresponsible parent who doesn't safe guard their children from their gun or the parent we already know has a penchant for violence.
I often wonder how people know when to shot. The two times that I was a target, I would not have had a chance to even reach for a gun. Once when I was between gondolas, selling hifi equipment, robbers came up from behind with a gun pointed at me, and another when I was in a restaurant, a guy (an idiot) across the room pulled a gun and I am in the line of fire. Fortunately both didn't shoot or I wouldn't be writing this comment:)