Aftermath of tornado clear as mud


Posted On: Thursday - March 21st 2019 3:20PM MST
In Topics: 
  Media Stupidity  Race/Genetics

Whatddya' make of this, reader?



Only a day or two before I had some business in this medium-sized American city, a tornado of some sort had come through and touched down right near downtown. Power had been out, apparently, and a very few buildings had been damaged, not at all like a hurricane with its more widespread destruction.

Anyway, as I perused the local newspaper (yeah, haha, they still got one), I read this one little paragraph from an article written when things were back to normal, shown above. Let me get this right, because there just aren't enough ACTION VERBS, compared to the way I was taught by my 7th grade teacher (just in case I was a budding journalist). I guess it's just 1 too few. "People entered the store." OK, well, was it open? If so, I think that's a dog-bites-man story, so far. Or was it closed, in which case HOW did they "enter"? Let's assume open, or that would mean some crime "had occurred".

"... and came out holding bottled water and other goods." What did they do between entering and coming out? If they just bought that water and other goods, then what the story? People seem to purchase stuff daily, and it's not usually news. Is it news because people bought items after some bad weather? No, not everyone is a prepper.



Ohhhhhhhh, I see. I believe the writer of the article wanted to mention looting without using the word looting. No, no looting, they just entered, and came back with water and other goods. Maybe they paid, maybe they didn't. Maybe the owner was giving all that away. The latter would be a feel-good story, would it not? Personally, I'd be glad to not have had to write this post to point out clear-as-mud journalism designed to only hint at what happened. We must read between the lines, as the old Babushka did with her copy of Pravda while sitting in the outhouse getting rid of some to that cabbage that she stood in line for 2 hours for!

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