Hamas War

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Oy, the headlines!


I "love" these headlines:
Suicide Bombing in Israel Kills 9; Hamas Approves


They never tell the hard truth, though this one has an accurate ending.
Let's start with the "subject," "suicide bombing." What is it? Is it something spontaneous, part of nature, like snow avalanche or hurricane, which can kill without any human cause? No it isn't. It's a human act, a murderous act caused by human beings, and the result is murder and mayhem. The "subject" of the title/headline should be "Terrorist," or more accurately, "Arab Terrorist," since the Arab terrorist exploded the bomb. It, the bomb, wasn't there by chance. The Arab terrorist brought it there, strapped to his body.

That brings us to the second problematic word, "kills." An avalanche, hurricane, shark, epidemic all kill. A terrorist MURDERS. Why is the media so afraid of the "m" word? A terrorist is a murderer; he's (or she is) not a demonstrator, nor activist, nor any of the other words the media prefers.


And I'd like to give credit, where credit's due, at least the New York Times admitted that Hamas approved of the terrorist murder. No carefully worded "apology" or "condemnation," even if they finally come out with something, can change that truth.

2 comments:

lecentre said...

You'd think they'd want to include the term 'murder' since that grabs attention. Playing devil's advocate, they might argue that that would be editorializing in the headline, taking a side. To that, though, I would respond that murder is what factually occurred, not to mention that kills can be equally said to be biased, as you demonstrated.
Nice one.

Batya said...

Thanks
It's too easy for people to "excuse" the terrorists, when such blameless words are used.