Yellow Journalism

Today's Post story about an attack in Mosul begins with a humorous example of the creeping problem of journalistic cowardice that has been appearing more and more lately. Journalists are supposed to hunt down the truth with tenacity and without consideration for who may be hurt or helped by it. Truth is its own end. However, more and more journalists are writing with the sensitivity and obfuscative language of lawyers and politicians. The Post story begins:

At least 22 people were killed and more than 60 wounded at a U.S. military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today when the installation came under attack by suspected insurgents

Suspected insurgents?

In my book, you can pretty much drop the "suspected" when 22 body bags are being shipped home. If they were referring to a specific person arrested, then 'suspected' would be correct.

Is this just an example of piss-poor English? Perhaps. But I think journalists are becoming far too comfortable with softening language. Remember those teenagers you knew who put the word "like" in front of evertthing? It's, pardon the expression, like that.

The most egregious recent example has been the Ukraine debacle. The Western media reported the story heavily, and tried to remain balanced. Balance, however, is important regarding opinions, not facts. Only one story of the many I saw actually reported the election results, and it shocked me. I had seen TV stories, news articles, opinion pieces, and none of them had mentioned that the vote came out 97% to 3%, or something like that. It was absurd; Saddamesque; Soviet-style. A joke. AP reporters should have written, "The election in Ukraine was marked by sweeping corruption, as results show that despite a closely contested campaign the election commission is reporting a 97% to 3% victory for Yanukovych." Instead they merely mentioned that international observers had called the elections illegitimate.

Balance should be sought in reporting opinions, truth in reporting facts. Today's yellow journalists are not only panic-mongers, they are cowards.