Semantic Minefields
By CLARK HOYT
NYT
IF the Obama administration takes out a radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, would it be a “targeted killing” or an “assassination?” Was the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina a “natural disaster” or a “man-made” one? Should new construction authorized by Israel in East Jerusalem be called Jewish “housing” or “settlements”?
Times journalists juggle such questions daily as they try to present the news in clear and evenhanded language. Depending on their choices, advocacy groups or individuals of one political persuasion or another accuse them of being inaccurate, retreating into euphemism or taking sides. In the war of words, there is sometimes no safe middle ground.
Stuart Gardiner of San Francisco was incensed last month after The Times reported that the administration had authorized the “targeted killing” of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who it believed was plotting attacks on the United States. Gardiner said the paper had resorted to “a euphemism for assassination,” reducing the decision to kill a person without due process to a term implying “something almost sanitary about the act, bureaucratic and bloodless.”
Scott Shane, the Washington reporter who wrote the article, said he chose his words carefully because there is a political and legal debate over whether killing Awlaki would fit the definition of an “assassination” by the government, which is prohibited by executive orders signed by three presidents — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “To adopt the very term that’s in dispute as our own seems highly unwise,” he said.
(More here.)
NYT
IF the Obama administration takes out a radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, would it be a “targeted killing” or an “assassination?” Was the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina a “natural disaster” or a “man-made” one? Should new construction authorized by Israel in East Jerusalem be called Jewish “housing” or “settlements”?
Times journalists juggle such questions daily as they try to present the news in clear and evenhanded language. Depending on their choices, advocacy groups or individuals of one political persuasion or another accuse them of being inaccurate, retreating into euphemism or taking sides. In the war of words, there is sometimes no safe middle ground.
Stuart Gardiner of San Francisco was incensed last month after The Times reported that the administration had authorized the “targeted killing” of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who it believed was plotting attacks on the United States. Gardiner said the paper had resorted to “a euphemism for assassination,” reducing the decision to kill a person without due process to a term implying “something almost sanitary about the act, bureaucratic and bloodless.”
Scott Shane, the Washington reporter who wrote the article, said he chose his words carefully because there is a political and legal debate over whether killing Awlaki would fit the definition of an “assassination” by the government, which is prohibited by executive orders signed by three presidents — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “To adopt the very term that’s in dispute as our own seems highly unwise,” he said.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home