The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
The anti-Reuters machine
: Maarten Schenk created a Movable Type plug-in that does just what Can-West newspapers do to Reuters story, pissing off Reuters and making reasonable people cheer for Can-West: “It will change all instances of the words militant, activist, fighter, gunman and resistance into the T-word.”
. . . thereby rendering many articles wholly inaccurate.
The right would like to group all these types under the convenient umbrella of “terrorist,” so that they can justify Iraq as part of the war on terror. Although there most certainly terrorists in Iraq and although the methods of the insurgents and the terrorist may sometimes overlap, they’re not the same things.
Insurgents (or rebels) try to gain physical ground, to seize power, terrorists do not – they murder for the sake of making whatever point they wish to make.
This distinction does not make the actions of insurgents necessarily superior (especially in Iraq), but it is a distinction.
And it shouldn’t be politicized.
Additionally, I’d hope any writer would be more concerned about preserving nuance in language, not less.
But then that’s a good metaphor for what this election is going to come down to, isn’t it? Which do you prefer? Nuance? Or bluster?
That’s a great idea.
And while we’re at it, we don’t need the words “excellent”, “great”, “bad”, “awful”, “horrible” and “super.”
We can just use these words:
double-plus good
plus good
good
ungood
double-ungood
That way the language becomes much more efficient.
I agree, Trent. I was a hair-breadth away from making the Orwell connection myself.
It actually gets funnier than this plugin. Check this out.
Was going to comment here but saw that both Trent and Robert S made comments much funnier than I could’ve for such a stupid idea.
You can always count on a few left-wing trolls to come by and defend Reuters’ Orwellian whitewashing of terrorism.
Right, Eric, it’s Reuters that’s Orwellian. Orwell wrote about draining language of its nuance, about reducing complicated matters to simplistic phrases like “they hate our freedom” and “if you ain’t for us, you’re against us.” Such reductionism, appealing as it may be to some, does nothing to promote discourse. It serves only to keep the general populus quiet. In check. And afraid.
Robert S.:
Have you actually read “Politics and the English Language”? (which I think is what we’re referring to here). Orwell also warned of euphemistic language being used to justify the unjustifiable, e.g. “pacification” for the process of bombing a village. Reuters’ refusing to call terrorism terroism is an attempt to blind their readers to the reality of terrorism, to make it seem more innocuous. The use of terms like “insurgenet” etc. is an attempt to legitimatize their cause. Only a moral nihilist would defend using obfuscatory language to legitimize terrorism.
Hasn’t the word ‘terrorism’ now become loaded down with other connotations since the Twin Tower crime? If so, than using it to denote a specific act or actions may not convey what the writer actually wants to say. In other words it is useless as a descriptive term.
ed,
How would you describe a person who deliberately kills civilians for political ends, with the intent of causing fear in the rest of the population? Got a better term?
How about ‘activist’, ‘militant’ or ‘insurgent’?
Nope, ‘terrorist’ is the word. Using any other term detracts from the cause of real ‘activists’, ‘militants’ and ‘insurgents’ who don’t blow up babies or cut of heads of civil engineers.
It is Reuters who are using NewSpeak here…
Ditto, Eric. Was going to point out that the pretentious Orwell references were ass-backwards, but you already did so handily.
Try actually reading Orwell, fellas. Not the CliffsNotes.
Russel, I’ve read Orwell. This Reuters-machine is *ridiculous*.
Is it not enough that you have the entire Internet to get news from? Do you now have to put filters so that your preferred news sources use words you like? It’s insane.
At the risk of overstating the obvious:
1) The plug-in is a tongue-in-cheek response to Reuters’s position on the term “terrorist”
2) It’s not Orwellian unless the government forces everyone to do it
The point, Eric, is that changing all references to these alternate words drains meaning from the dialogue. Of course, *some* of these people deserve the label terorrists. However, removing *all* of those references to rebels, insurgents, etc is mendacious and simplistic.
The people beheading volunteers in Iraq: terrorists.
The people firing on American troops and trying to maintain ground in Fallujah: insurgents.
Some of these may be the same people.
OK? It’s that simple.
Let’s not change the language to suit political goals. Let’s not cease in making distinctions just because it’s easier to clump people together. When that happens, truth gets lost in the process. And that’s *precisely* what Orwell was talking about.
Robert, Reuters ‘changed the language to suit political goals’–they don’t use the word ‘terrorist’ even when it’s warranted. They don’t distinguish between the ‘activist’ working to get out the vote and the ‘activist’ working to blow up the train to influence the vote.
So the plug-in does the exact same ham-handed thing in reverse.
It’s satire….humor, rather than beheadings, to make a point.
Orwell started out as a committed socialist, and then became a disillusioned socialist when he fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War, and observed first hand how the Left conducts politics–as war, ruthlessly, mercilessly, to the bone, with no refuge for the individual, encompassing every last little detail of human existence. Most of his writings offer no comfort to the Left.
Which makes it so amusing when Leftists try quoting him.
Which word better fits someone who sticks a bayonet into the living guts of a small child who hasn’t been allowed to have water in three days, as happened in Beslan recently? Activist? Or terrorist?
It is Reuters which put the weight of its’ history and massive organization behind this unconscionable twisting of the language, and it is Reuters which richly deserves to be mocked for doing so. Along with any of the moral lowlifes who dare defend such a thing.
I’ve written a plugin that changes the word “Bush” to “Swagger McHallibushitler”. Probably more y’all’s speed.
Whups, link vergessen:
plugin
Insurgents (or rebels) try to gain physical ground, to seize power, terrorists do not – they murder for the sake of making whatever point they wish to make.
woo-hoo, look at all the territory those minutemen are gobbling up with those car bombs and exploding burkha-babes! geesh, if only we’d known their courageous methods, we could’ve rolled the commies right back up the Mekong with our Explode-O-Magic Hats
You sure have a way with words, Bingley
sometimes i hear the muse’s whisper, ken.