Posted on 04/12/2010 9:30:36 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
Today, in his guise as the Washington Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander posted a discussion about the recent misreporting by the Old Media about the various “incidents” that supposedly occurred between the admittedly raucous tea party protesters and members of Congress in Washington, D.C., during the healthcare fight. But while Alexander finally makes some admissions on how the Old Media dropped the ball on these exaggerated reports, he still missed the point of the whole mess.
Alexander starts his report off with an interesting rhetorical style. He writes about incidents as if they actually happened even as he admits later down the page that either they didn’t or might not have. He recounts the supposed incidents in affirmative language instead of using qualifiers. “The Post and other news organizations had reported a series of incidents so ugly,” Alexander says, “they were denounced by congressional leaders of both parties.” Notice how he didn’t use qualifiers like “alleged incidents”? No, he said “reported on incidents” as if they were actual incidents that have been proven. If someone were to stop reading after the first few paragraphs they’d go away thinking those “incidents” were confirmed and true.
In any case, Alexander recounts the supposed “spitting” incident where Rep. Emanuel Cleaver complained that he was spat upon as he entered the capitol. He also recounted the name-calling that Rep. Barney Frank encountered as well as the thus far unproven “N” word incident that black members of Congress claim that they suffered through on the day they signed the bill providing for a government take over of America’s health system...
Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...
The WaPo got it just right, according to their agenda.
Those “journalistic style points” are deliberate deceptions.
Any "journalist" who engages in name-calling (like using the homosexaul slur "teabagger"), is intellectually dishonest.
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