Mistakes were made...

An interesting article from thismodernworld.com, forwarded to me by Sharon (thanks). I don't think the writer realizes that often it is the headline writers who use passive voice because ambiguities exist in the story. Anyway, problems have been caused. A growing trend disturbs me: passive verb choices are used in embarrassing war headlines. With normal verb subjects omitted, actions and responsibility are suddenly obscured. Story content becomes more difficult to understand. Upsetting news is not registered by readers, while credit can still be taken for running hard stories on page one. Editors making such choices remain unblamed. Today's print-edition L.A. Times has these news headlines on its front page -- and one of these things is quite plainly not like the other: High Court Upholds Jailing of Immigrants GOP Budges On State Budget Asia Bands Together On SARS Palestinian PM Urges End To 'Armed Chaos' Music Industry Tries Fear As A Tactic To Stop Online Piracy Tense Standoff Between Troops And Iraqis Erupts In Bloodshed Look closely -- of the six headlines, the first five are clear, simple, Noun-Verb-Object structures: A) these folks B) did this C) to that. You can get the gist of these stories in a single glance. The last, however, is plainly different -- structured passively, turning a simple story into semantic mud: Tense Standoff Between Troops And Iraqis Erupts In Bloodshed Hmm. Odd, isn't it? It's actually impossible to know what happened, who was responsible, or what it means. Did blood just suddenly start spurting from every orifice, perhaps, like the Monty Python version of a Sam Peckinpaugh-directed lawn party? Not quite. The actual headline, had it been written as plainly as the others, would have been: U.S. Troops Fire On Iraqis; 13 Reported Dead Which, while a bit jarring, is how Canada's CBC (among others worldwide) covered the exact same story. (The questions of whether some Iraqis fired first, fired back, or were even armed at all, remain unresolved.) Just a quick study in media manipulation. It's damn near constant, and the net effect is inevitably a gross and misleading disservice to readers, about as detailed and accurate as Hiroshima, Nagasaki rocked by powerful explosions might have been in an earlier era. Watch and see how many times U.S. and British editors suddenly slip into passive tense only when they're delivering news that might make readers a bit uncomfortable. Incidentally, the BBC's predictable use of passive tense in reporting this same incident -- Protesters shot in Falluja omits entirely who even held the guns -- right next to clear, non-passive headlines like Bush to declare fighting 'over' Rumsfeld hails troops in Iraq and so on. As a rule, passive tense equals at least some level of manipulation. Any decent writer knows to avoid it, precisely because it's confusing -- but editors often rely on passive tense to keep uncomfortable questions about individual and collective responsibility (including their own) at bay. (update) More from Bob Harris: Passive tense continues to kill Iraqi civilians. The CBC is also now carrying this, recording a second such incident: U.S. Troops Fire Again On Iraqi Protesters While the LA Times front page currently says (at 5:04 pm pdt 4/30/03) 2 Iraqis Killed In New Shooting and CNN's front page says Second day of deadly clashes in Iraqi town CNN's inside story carries this quote from a U.S. soldier directly involved: "All I know is a couple hundred people gathered out in the streets; they threw rocks, so we shot back, and they all ran down that way." But the story is nonetheless passively, fault-removingly headlined: Two killed in second clash in Fallujah There ought to be an activist group called Citizens Against Passive Tense. It seems to kill more people than any other single cause or clause) on Earth. (another update) More from Bob Harris: Alert readers have pointed out a) it's passive "voice," not "tense," and b) while the above examples are all worded to obscure the active subject, not all exactly fit the dictionary definition of the term. Absolutely right. Thanks. Still, the point about misleading headlines is clear. Otherwise... Mistakes were made.