I am so sick of seeing bullshit headlines like this:
Why the quotes? The actual report itself:
A manhunt for a suspected knifeman has been launched today after a ‘heavily pregnant’ woman was stabbed in Aberfan in a suspected ‘domestic incident’.
Let me just parse this.
- The woman was “heavily pregnant” — i.e., she had a huge non-Lizzo-style belly, clearly apparent.
- She was stabbed — obviously apparent, so no quotes. But then we have:
- A”suspected” knifeman (my quotes). If she was so obviously stabbed, how could the stabber be a “suspected” knifeman?
I know, I know: the reporter is simply reporting from what he’s been told by, one imagines, either the police or hospital staff, hence all the quotes.
And it’s all bullshit. A pregnant woman was stabbed by a knife-wielding man (even that’s redundant), and police are looking for him. The circumstances surrounding the stabbing were, apparently, that it was down to a domestic incident — i.e. the stabber was known by the stabbee — the details of which are still unknown.
If it turns out that it wasn’t a domestic incident — i.e. that the woman was stabbed by some nutcase because he hates Tuesdays and the voices in his head told him to hurt someone, anyone — then the time for amending the report comes when the newspaper can print that no, it wasn’t a domestic incident as first reported, it was just some random loony.
I’m sorry, I meant “loony”.
I realize that this is the Daily Mail newspaper– hardly a paragon of acceptable journalism — but fucking hell, can we at least dispense with all the prevaricating quote marks?
Well it did happen in “Wales.” Probably ran out of “sheep.”
“ A pregnant woman was stabbed by a knife-wielding man (even that’s redundant)‘
Why redundant? One can stab with a lot of things. Pencils. Spears. Ice picks.
Well, if she’s “heavily pregnant”, then she was apparently “stabbed” by something else entirely about 7 to 8 months ago. One would assume.
The media and most reporters working in the media are either stupid or must be purposefully writing at a kindergarten level of writing
Some other dumb quotes that are in the media many times:
“Fully loaded gun”. Who the fuck partially loads a gun? Would you partially load a firearm or the gas tank to your car?
“Heavy police presence”. Are the police heavy? Or do they mean many police on the scene.
“Heavily armed”. Does this mean the person has more than one gun? Or are their guns “fully loaded”.
33 round “CLIP”. It’s a fucking magazine. A box with a spring that accepts cartridges is a fucking magazine.
“High capacity” magazine. Oh. Those evil magazines that hold more than 10 rounds right?
“The crew was there putting out the fire all night.” Gee I thought they would stop around midnight go home and get some rest and then come back in the morning to finish putting out the blaze.
Add to this anything the LAME STREAM media WRITES about Donald Trump. 99.9 percent bullshit lies the media tells about Trump.
Also add to the list of bullshit quotes / sayings in the media:
“Gun Violence”
Is it Car violence or alcohol violence when a drunk driver murders someone else by being a drunk asshole?
Growing up I was told that the newspapers were written at a 6th Grade reading level. That seems to have sunk lower.
JQ
My pet peeve with the British papers is their incessant use of ALL CAPS in headlines to highlight an important element of the story.