4 ms·
Why are the culprits in the story referred to as "actors"?
by cloudkj 17y ago
Why are the culprits in the story referred to as "actors"?
- asmithmd1 17y agoIt is a student newspaper
- andrewljohnson 17y agoThat's what we would often call them in crime stories, and it's a common word in a lot of newspapers. It's nice because it doesn't imply guilt... it just states who is involved. I used to edit The Tartan.
- tokenadult 17y agoIs there a lot of that kind of crime near the campus?
- TheSOB88 17y agoHow is not implying guilt nice? I've seen the same concept in calling criminals 'suspects', but when you've just seen someone shoot someone else (for example), not implying guilt shouldn't be taken into consideration.
- csbrooks 17y agoPresumably the reporter didn't just see the crime in question.
- electromagnetic 17y agoNot implying guilt should be taken into consideration. People have a legal right to a fair trial, if they don't get one you lose the ability to prosecute as the verdict can easily be thrown out in the face of infallible evidence due to a tainted jury pool. Many times, the law isn't concerned with what you did but why you did it. I could shoot someone in the middle of the street in front of 200 people, however he might have just tried to sink me with a knife to get my wallet. It's the jury's job to decide whether I'm guilty on all the evidence, not on what a newspaper publishes. This is why in Crown countries the government frequently has the ability to put a press-embargo on a case until after conviction.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- crux_ 17y agoThen you say you saw A shoot B. What you don't say is that A is a murderer. (Note: I really despise the use of the word "actors" in the article, though. It's less wordy than "alleged theives" or whatever, but it could also have been omitted entirely. "The two actors" ---> "The two" etc.)
- TheSOB88 17y agoWhy? A is a murderer.
- crux_ 17y agoHow do you know? A could be mentally ill, and thus innocent. A could be an undercover officer, or shooting in self defence against a threat you didn't see. And so on. You can say "in my opinion, A is a murderer" -- but the only time you should be making a statement of fact on A's guilt is after it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. To do otherwise is to dishonestly masquerade your opinion as fact and to expose yourself to a nice fat libel lawsuit along the way.
- asmithmd1 17y agousing the word actor in this case adds no information and confuses people not familiar with this use, someone skimming quickly might think it was a play. Why not: men, youths, students, locals? Make the story more clear by adding more, accurate detail; not more confusing by trying to maintain some obscure notion of political correctness.
- cduruk 17y agoThat's what cops called them when this whole thing happened and that's why I used that specific word.