Fox murders credibility
OK, this is a real-life lesson, courtesy of Fox News (Motto: What, us care?) in why we don't carelessly throw around the term "murder." (Thanks to Fev at Heads up the Blog for the pointer.)
The headline on the story by Melissa Drosjack is thus:
Mary Winkler Calls Murder of Her Minister Husband 'Tragic Event'
Drosjack -- who ought to be ashamed, by the way, unless the desk changed her copy (in which case a murder might be yet forthcoming) -- writes this lede:The mother who confessed to killing her minister husband with a shotgun spoke out for the first time on national television Wednesday, calling the murder a "tragic event" and expressing a longing to see her three young daughters again.
Eight grafs down is this:
Mary Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served five months in jail with two months in a mental-health treatment facility.
Let's all repeat in unison -- manslaughter is NOT murder. Common civility requires us to respect that little nicety. Oh, I forgot. You can't spell civility with "fox."
Labels: copy editing, Fox, murder, usage
posted by Doug @ 2:06 AM
2 comments|
2 Comments:
Doug, I doubt Fox's errors are always that--too often, there appears to be an agenda. Tuesday, for example. Fox said it was rebroadcasting its programming from Sept.11, 2001. It opened with the tape of the firefighters who were being filmed nearby as part of a documentary about the FDNY. The photographer looked up and shot the one tape of the first plane hitting the tower. Now, that tape did not surface until the second day. No one happened to be showing it live. But Fox deliberately, in my view, led people to believe that it had broadcast it live. Because as part of the "rebroadcast" it immediately went to its studio showing the 2001 commentators talking about what had just happened. So they integrated a newer shot into old files and pretended it was all one and the same. This is what is wrong with Fox News and this is why Howard Kurtz shouldn't say that it's okay.
Pam:
I have no doubt it is done deliberately. With malice? That's another question. With uncaringness? Most definitely, thus my reference to Fox's "motto."
Anything for a good "show." The show -- that's what counts. Everyone and everything else be damned.
Of course, Fox would then be the first to complain that the world is going to hell in a handcart. Sort of keeps them in business, doesn't it?
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