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Current title of this post: "Paper investigating police chief prior to the raids on his office and home." But it was the newspaper owner, not the police chief
by jp57 3y ago
Current title of this post: "Paper investigating police chief prior to the raids on his office and home."
But it was the newspaper owner, not the police chief, who was raided.
Actual article title and subtitle: "A conversation with the newspaper owner raided by cops / Eric Meyer says his paper had been investigating the police chief prior to the raids on his office and home."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TheFreim 3y ago> But it was the newspaper owner, not the police chief, who was raided. That's what the title means.
- halfdan 3y agoIt’s ambiguous and I also read “him” as the police chief being raided.
- hinkley 3y agoBecause 'police chief' is the only potential gendered identifier in the entire title.
- eis 3y agoThe title on HN at the current time [0] says the police chief was raided. There is only one person mentioned and therefor "his" can only refer to that person. "His" can not refer to the newspaper. [0] "Paper investigating police chief prior to the raids on his office and home."
- hinkley 3y agoI just clicked on the thread now and it still is listed as mentioned by GP.
- TheFreim 3y agoIt says that the paper investigating the police chief was raided. I don't know many news papers that engage in raids on police, so it's pretty clear.
- xdavidliu 3y agonot a single person here agrees with you. The title didnt say who performed the raiding. A police chief could be raided by the FBI.
- JshWright 3y agoIt doesn’t say the paper was the entity engaged in the raid. If I didn’t know the broader context, I would assume that sentence meant “A newspaper was investigating a police chief at the time the police chief’s home was raided by another law enforcement agency”. That seems way more likely than a newspaper being referred to as “him”.
- jahsome 3y agoNo, it's not. The current title omits the raised person altogether.
- TheFreim 3y agoHow is it that despite not having yet read the article I knew EXACTLY what it meant? The pedantic and intentionally obtuse nitpickery in this thread is silly and absurd.
- matsemann 3y agoBecause the title is changed now, but was something else half an hour ago.
- jahsome 3y agoThis is a community of people whose career revolves around precise language. You knew because you're intelligent and were able to piece things together. Many in society are not so fortunate for one reason of another and so it's important to be precise.
- paxys 3y agoThen it should say "paper owner" not "paper".
- echelon_musk 3y agoAbsolutely. If the surname of the newspaper's owner happened to also be Paper, then this might make sense. Otherwise it is very wrong.
- JshWright 3y agoIt’s definitely a confusing title though, as the pronoun “his” seems way more likely to refer to the police chief than the “paper”.
- TheFreim 3y agoHow many newspapers engage in raids upon police chiefs? Clearly it's the police who is doing the raiding.
- JshWright 3y agoThe title doesn’t say the newspaper engaged in the raid. There are other agencies that could raid a police chief’s home. It would be reasonable to assume some agency like the FBI conducted the raid based on the same information that prompted the investigation. That’s not actually the case here, but I think that is a way more plausible reading of the sentence.
- froggit 3y agoAgreed. Last I checked, papers don't have a gender, therefore a gender specific pronoun is incorrect. Regardless, the title has since been edited. Controversy resolved, maybe now we can discuss the topic x.x
- leereeves 3y agoI agree, "his" is ambiguous at best and seems to refer to the police chief (a person) rather than the paper (an organization). A simple change would make it clear: Paper investigating police chief prior to the raids on owner's office and home
- celtoid 3y agoFixed. Thank you and sorry for confusion.
- hgsgm 3y agoThe actual title is much better than this gore. A conversation with the newspaper owner raided by cops
- runnerup 3y agoThe title as it is this moment on HN was better for me at least, it made it clear that it was in context of ongoing investigative research done by the newspaper against the police.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y agoBut it’s missing a key piece of information: the paper was investigating allegations against the newly-hired police chief who was in charge of the raid.