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Journalism is about more than merely reporting facts in bullet point format. Save that for PowerPoint - journalism is about connecting those dots into what the

by huac 11y ago

Journalism is about more than merely reporting facts in bullet point format. Save that for PowerPoint - journalism is about connecting those dots into what the reporter believes is the story.

Karunamon 11y ago
And that ought to be done as neutrally and factually as possible. If I can see what the journalist's opinion on the matter is by reading their article, they did it wrong. Their job is to tell me what happened and why, not what I should think about it. Saying that people were "disappeared" as this article does is not journalism, it is demagoguery.
- wfo 11y ago
  If their facts are correct (and I think we would be remiss in our duty as citizens if we do not give serious attention to every negative thing said about the police at this point until proven otherwise), stating they were "disappeared" is neither journalism or demagoguery, it is fact. Journalism is the article that wraps itself around the word.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    But that's nothing more than a half-truth at that point - a lie by omission, since when most people think of the verb "disappeared", they tend to think gulags, people vanishing permanently, etc, like what happened under Stalin. I know it, you know it, and the writers of a paper like The Guardian certainly know it. Off the books interrogations happening is nothing short of evil on its own - why stretch the truth to imply something else that wasn't happening?
    - wfo 11y ago
      Stalin doesn't own the word 'disappeared'. It's the word you use to describe a policy of taking someone off the street, refusing to acknowledge that they are in custody, denying them access to the outside world and their civil rights. That's what's happening here. What other word would you use to describe it? I'd agree the connotation is unfortunate but that's simply because 'disappearing' citizens is rarely seen outside of brutal tyrannical dictatorships and in those cases it's usually paired with things that are even worse -- they are sent to gulags and tortured/killed/etc. But the fact that something characteristic of brutal dictatorships is happening in Chicago is exactly what's shocking about the story.

by huac 11y ago

Journalism is about more than merely reporting facts in bullet point format. Save that for PowerPoint - journalism is about connecting those dots into what the reporter believes is the story.

Karunamon 11y ago

And that ought to be done as neutrally and factually as possible. If I can see what the journalist's opinion on the matter is by reading their article, they did it wrong. Their job is to tell me what happened and why, not what I should think about it. Saying that people were "disappeared" as this article does is not journalism, it is demagoguery.

wfo 11y ago
If their facts are correct (and I think we would be remiss in our duty as citizens if we do not give serious attention to every negative thing said about the police at this point until proven otherwise), stating they were "disappeared" is neither journalism or demagoguery, it is fact. Journalism is the article that wraps itself around the word.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  But that's nothing more than a half-truth at that point - a lie by omission, since when most people think of the verb "disappeared", they tend to think gulags, people vanishing permanently, etc, like what happened under Stalin. I know it, you know it, and the writers of a paper like The Guardian certainly know it. Off the books interrogations happening is nothing short of evil on its own - why stretch the truth to imply something else that wasn't happening?
  - wfo 11y ago
    Stalin doesn't own the word 'disappeared'. It's the word you use to describe a policy of taking someone off the street, refusing to acknowledge that they are in custody, denying them access to the outside world and their civil rights. That's what's happening here. What other word would you use to describe it? I'd agree the connotation is unfortunate but that's simply because 'disappearing' citizens is rarely seen outside of brutal tyrannical dictatorships and in those cases it's usually paired with things that are even worse -- they are sent to gulags and tortured/killed/etc. But the fact that something characteristic of brutal dictatorships is happening in Chicago is exactly what's shocking about the story.