http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2011/10/12/18815016.html
The headline reads "Criminal gets 18 years for child's murder."
This is precisely wrong. The ciminal got life in prison for child's murder. It's 18 years without a chance of parole.
This shit fucking annoys me. Why does the media deliberately lie to people like this? Do they get paid by conservative politcal forces to spew these lies? Am I answering my own questions?
Is there anyone in journalism who can tell me the answer to this question?
Thanks!
Actually, it's pretty simple.
You can't stuff 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound sack.
While you imply that your second question answers the first, that's emotion talking, not logic.
Doesn't take a journalist to answer your questions, but if you're paranoid about media conspiracies you'll ignore the truth anyhow.
Although you are reading an on-line news site, the story is lifted verbatim from a contributing newspaper, therefore the headline was written for a print page, and there's no manpower to rethink it or rewrite it for the spot it falls into on the web page.
On that newspaper page, there was likely only this much room in the headline box for all letters and spaces:
------------------------------------------------
Just enough to cram in
Criminal gets 18 years for child's murder
Even though
Criminal gets 18 years for child's murder without a chance of parole
would appear to be an accurate headline in your mind. Even though it isn't. To be fully accurate, the headline should read:
Convicted on second-degree murder charge in death of child, (insert specific name of criminal here)
sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for a parole hearing prior to serving a minimum of 18 years
Like so many other things in life, news writing involves compromise. So does headline writing.
So does your job, wet_suit_one, which for the sake of illustration here I'll assume involves scuba diving. You make a decision that now is the moment you need to stop scooping up pirate treasure from the ocean floor and get back to the surface before your oxygen runs out. When you get back in the boat and check your tank, turns out there was at least 5 more minutes oxygen available, enough time for you to have grabbed another handful or two of gold doubloons.
Your boss on the boat may give you the gears, wonder why you lied about how much you time you really had, but nobody else cares.
The journalist who makes a typo in print is exposed to criticism from everybody who can read the page. Even those who appear barely literate themselves, judging by the kinds of posts that appear here on terb and push Petzel's grammar-cop button.
Much as I distrust Harper's "law and order" campaign, I'm pretty confident the media does not "get paid by conservative politcal forces to spew these lies"
