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Merged Copaganda/Torturing the English language whenever a cop kills someone

Myriad said:
Oh, give the police a break. People who look like they're about to become violent are everywhere, and the officers need a free hand to protect the rest of us from them.
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Yeah, yeah! Shoot on sight! Right?
 
Bob001 said:
There's nothing wrong with the style guide. It basically says "Tell what happened; don't rely on police terminology." But that can't prevent plain bad writing.



It sounds like the sentence could be re-written something like this:





Does that cover it?
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How about... "Police develop Pit Maneuver technique for two wheel vehicles."
[emoji15]
 
Major Media Outlets Can’t Stop Describing Police Violence As ‘Officer-Involved’ Incidents
Following the murder of George Floyd, The Associated Press issued guidance that reporters should not describe instances where police shot someone with neutral language. It didn't work.

...

Usage of the phrase declined in 2020, but following Floyd’s murder — and, two months later, the new AP guidance — it began to climb back up in 2021. In August of last year, “officer-involved” appeared 56 times, and was used at least once in 8% of all articles about police violence in that month. This represents a return to the rates in the mid-2000s, after usage of “officer-involved” had begun to significantly increase.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/police-violence-officer-involved-analysis-lapd_n_61df310fe4b0a26702885448
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Considering the frequency in which journalists parrot cop press release language in their own publications, it's obviously still a problem.
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Which is all they have to go on. Perhaps you would prefer the reporter got a little creative?

The motorcyclist was riding along at a reasonable and prudent speed when a cop, no doubt assuming the motorcyclist was Black, swerved intentionally into his lane, murdering him in cold blood.
 
Brainster said:
Which is all they have to go on. Perhaps you would prefer the reporter got a little creative?

The motorcyclist was riding along at a reasonable and prudent speed when a cop, no doubt assuming the motorcyclist was Black, swerved intentionally into his lane, murdering him in cold blood.
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Yes, if only there was some alternative that has already been clearly stated in this thread, readily apparent to anyone arguing in good faith.
 
I think the problem here is that somewhere along the line, an editorial decision has been made that it is better to equivocate in the initial reporting of an incident than to retract a definitive statement that was wrong. That's why you see the word "alleged" so often. Editors go to great lengths to avoid saying "this person did a thing" because even if they do have to print a retraction, people will remember the incorrect statement, not the subsequent retraction.
 
I think in the US at least the use of "alleged" is common because in criminal cases a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and even in the most obvious cases pre-conviction is at least bad form.

This is separate from the issue of passive voices and the like. You can still say something like "the cop is alleged to have pumped seventeen bullets into the motorist" without saying a motorist underwent bullet trauma or something.
 
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