Baaad journalism: pitfalls in our click-bait age. Here are a couple of handy points for sub-editors to keep in mind should they wish to stem the current dumbing-down slide.
-The use of "we".
How dare journalists state that "Why We All (love this or do that)"! Speak for yourself, mate... The use of this inclusive pronoun is never warranted. It is a sign of arrogance and bias. When they smack readers with this pronoun, journalists are only trying to impose their agenda upon the rest of the world. I doubt very much that the rest of the world has given them permission.
I probably took note of this detestable imposition a dozen years back when a columnist discussing the state of rock proudly crowned off her self-proclaimed rantings with "anyway, we'll all listen to nothing but Girls Aloud next year". Like fcuk I will.
-Superlatives.
I have no moral objection to anyone writing "one the most (this or that)". On the other hand, my rational self is instantly rubbed the wrong way when I see "the best this / the greatest that".
-PC neologisms.
Please call a spade a spade and don't encourage snobbish self-virtuous would-be intellectuals. One of the reasons for standing up to the idiocy of jargon is that it effectively endorses / condones the self-definition or euphemism / misnomer created to distort a horrible truth. Cases in point include "h*n*ur killing", "ethnic cl*ansing", "collateral damages, or "alt-right". (I already wrote on this subject elsewhere.)
-Crowbarring in ideological obsessions, or pushing an agenda (where it does not belong).
Recent example: the recap of "Twin Peaks 2017" episodes by The Guardian. First episode and the journalist can't help himself: mentions Donald Trump.
The underlying idea here is a plea for relevance. We desperately need deontological rationality: journalists should strive to stick to their subject as closely as possible.
Yes yes, I know that the validity of truth has been discussed for millennia (ie is there such thing as objectivity at all?) but, really, asking someone not to go off on an unrelated rant should not be too much to ask.
We need cold hard facts restraint more than ever in the age of Trump so please, dear journalists, stick to facts. If you're supposed to describe a football match, report on what happened during these 90 minutes, and don't make conjectures about possible transfers.
-References to supposedly related, similar occurences.
(Cf. above: stick to the subject!) Whenever a proper event happens, papers will unfailingly try to relate it to past occurrences. The problem is that every happening is by definition unique. I understand the wish to come up with a narrative or offer grounding / reasons for what happened but, unless there is a clear case for linking the present event to others ...comparisons are worthless. Let me repeat: comparisons are worthless per se.
I understand wanting to give a sense of perspective but listing other events in the hope that they will be comparable hence relevant hence instructive is just wishful thinking. It is page-filling.
What am I talking about, some may wonder.
Well, here are a few examples: murders, epidemics, cataclysmic events... What does it matter if another earthquake happened in another part of the world some other time? What does matter is how the response to another earthquake may facilitate the response to the one currently described. Or, returning to our football theme, how exactly do past matches (ie with two different line-ups) matter? You often hear "Team A hasn't beaten Team B in 5 years" -so what? What counts is the present match, "you can only beat what you have in front of you". Unlike you mean to invoke supernatural factors such as fate, auto-suggestion or curses, the mention of past results seems to me devoid of any import.
To be contined, no doubt.
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