All the News that Fits 0
I’ve noted many times how, in news reports of gun deaths, guns seem to just go off all on their ownsome, without the interference of some human agency to cause their triggers to be engaged. It’s not just guns, folks.
In a much longer post about perception and perspective in reporting the events in Ferguson, Missouri, Mikhail Lyubansky gives a telling example–telling in its pettiness–of how the framing of an event affects reporting and consequent perception of it.
Some of them [students] walked into Crescent Drive in front of the school. As that occurred, a vehicle travelled through the crowd. At least one of the students struck the vehicle’s window and caused damage to the glass, according to police, who were called to the scene.
Notice how the article places the damage to the car in the foreground. The car was not driven through the group of students, it just somehow “travelled through the crowd” — the passive voice. But when it comes to the damage to the car, it didn’t just happen. Rather “one of the students struck the vehicle’s window” — the active voice.
Do read the rest, and remember to read the news with several grains of salt.
Afterthought:
I take no responsibility for the Psychology Today blogger’s ignorance of basic grammar.
“Car traveled” is active voice, even though it is obfuscatory, in that it attributes agency to the car, which is a mechanical device without agency.
