3 ms·

Both versions are fancifully direct in our era a media+police stenography, try: Mayor denounces "radical activists" rioting and damaging city property in respo

by lkey 15d ago

Both versions are fancifully direct in our era a media+police stenography, try: Mayor denounces "radical activists" rioting and damaging city property in response to an officer-involved incident that resulted in one fatal kinetic altercation with a "loud and provocatively dressed" man.

amiga386 15d ago
> officer-involved incident Ah, the past exonerative tense. https://archive.is/wPVdy https://archive.is/wPVdy Read McSweeney's guide to ambiguous grammar, where they lead you step by step from the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog to the ultimate say-nothing sentence speed was involved in a jumping-related incident while a fox was brown, and the punchline is you can then translate "the St Louis County Police Department was involved in an officer-involved shooting after officers came under heavy gunfire" to "a police officer shot a black person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Michael_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Michael_Brown) https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-... But no, that's the language issued by police departments covering their asses. Journalists are a little bit covering their asses in making clear what is a quote and what isn't, but they're still responsible for what they choose to quote, and to be clear on whether they have verified the claims they're quoting. Ideally, unverified claims shouldn't even be in an article. But when there _has_ been some kind of stramash, they just don't know who did what, the need to rush out an article to get clicks means they'll just quote both sides and try to give them equal prominence until they can do more verification.
- ratelimitsteve 15d ago
  https://patch.com/california/northhollywood/my-daughter-died-my-arms-mom-teen-hit-lapd-bullet https://patch.com/california/northhollywood/my-daughter-died... oh like this article that says a child was hit by a "LAPD bullet" as though wild bullets roam the streets of LA looking for children instead of being fired from a gun by a person who made a decision.
jimbokun 15d ago
Do the BBC or other outlets use "officer-involved incident" without quotes? It's generally police officials that use that terminology.

by lkey 15d ago

amiga386 15d ago

> officer-involved incident Ah, the past exonerative tense. https://archive.is/wPVdy https://archive.is/wPVdy Read McSweeney's guide to ambiguous grammar, where they lead you step by step from the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog to the ultimate say-nothing sentence speed was involved in a jumping-related incident while a fox was brown, and the punchline is you can then translate "the St Louis County Police Department was involved in an officer-involved shooting after officers came under heavy gunfire" to "a police officer shot a black person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Michael_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Michael_Brown) https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-... But no, that's the language issued by police departments covering their asses. Journalists are a little bit covering their asses in making clear what is a quote and what isn't, but they're still responsible for what they choose to quote, and to be clear on whether they have verified the claims they're quoting. Ideally, unverified claims shouldn't even be in an article. But when there _has_ been some kind of stramash, they just don't know who did what, the need to rush out an article to get clicks means they'll just quote both sides and try to give them equal prominence until they can do more verification.

ratelimitsteve 15d ago
https://patch.com/california/northhollywood/my-daughter-died-my-arms-mom-teen-hit-lapd-bullet https://patch.com/california/northhollywood/my-daughter-died... oh like this article that says a child was hit by a "LAPD bullet" as though wild bullets roam the streets of LA looking for children instead of being fired from a gun by a person who made a decision.

jimbokun 15d ago

Do the BBC or other outlets use "officer-involved incident" without quotes? It's generally police officials that use that terminology.