Sometimes I get so bogged down in the complicated stuff I forget to talk about the more basic things that seem to be plaguing journalism these days. Case in point – all journalism, no matter the source, is made up of the same things: words. Sounds dumb, but word choice is a HUGE part of what we journalists do for a living. Because we are limited by word counts and deadlines, the words we choose need to work overtime to convey the messages we need to get across.
Unfortunately, both good journalists and bad journalists know this fact, and use their words as either helpful tools… or dangerous weapons, accordingly. There are two parts of speech in particular I’ve noticed are frequently weaponized in what’s passing for journalism today – adjectives and descriptive verbs.
Adjectives are words that modify or describe nouns; think about the lyrics to the old Schoolhouse Rock Adjective song: He was a hairy bear, he was a scary bear. We beat a hasty retreat from his lair. Adjectives (in that case: hairy, scary, hasty) are widely acceptable in fiction, but they have never been acceptable in journalism in my lifetime… until now.
Descriptive verbs are verbs that also act a lot like adjectives - words like:
pummeled
ransacked
gushed
sobbed
A quick online search shows people describing them as: “strong,” “vivid,” “engaging,” “suspenseful,” “emotional*,” “moody,” “exuberant” and “giving a boost of color and energy.” Like adjectives, descriptive verbs are widely acceptable – welcomed, even – in fiction. But, again, in my lifetime, they have never been acceptable in journalism… until now.
I’ve got a pretty great example this week of how both of these parts of speech are used and abused in real life “journalism,” courtesy once again of our old friend Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post. For readers new to this blog, Ms. Sullivan is an advocate for a growing movement that promotes getting rid of “both sides” journalism (which has pretty much been the guiding principle in journalism for close to a century, now) and instead just giving readers journalists’ own versions of “the truth;” read about that in my very first post, here.
Here’s the article I’m referencing in today’s post. The part I’d like to dissect today starts with some advice she’s giving to fellow “journalists,” on how to handle stories about election fraud claims. Idea #1, she says, is:
“Stop relying on shorthand
.
Too often, even the most credible journalists who are trying to cover the disastrous effects of the Big Lie explain it by sprinkling phrases into their reporting like “baseless claims” or “without evidence” — and seem to expect them to do all the work.
But that’s simply ineffective. “People don’t notice this boilerplate language after a while,” Rosenstiel said, “or even begin to bristle at it.”
What’s the alternative? Journalists should take the time — even in an ordinary news story or brief broadcast segment — to be more specific. Let’s offer a few sentences that give detail on
why
the claims are baseless and
how
they’ve been debunked.”
Never mind that odd nickname she’s using for election fraud claims (nicknames are cool in grade school … not so much in grown-up “journalism…”), I got really excited when I read that last paragraph! It was the first time I think I have ever agreed with her on anything! (can you tell by the exclamation points?!)
I was really hoping (I know – I’m crazy to keep having hope) that she was finally advocating for those in our national news media to return to acting like real, live journalists by providing PROOF – ie: supporting factual information (“WHY the claims are baseless and HOW they’ve been debunked”) – to back up the claims they make in “news stories” today. Instead, my hopes were quickly dashed when I read the next part of her piece:
“The second paragraph of this January
national security report
in The Washington Post does just that: “By mid-December, President Trump’s fraudulent claims of a rigged election were failing in humiliating fashion. Lawsuits were being laughed out of courts. State officials, including Republicans, were refusing to bend to his will and alter the vote. And in a seemingly decisive blow on Dec. 14, the electoral college certified the win for Joe Biden.”
Sigh. It’s beautiful – if a bit dramatic – prose, for sure. It is not, however, journalism, and in no way, shape or form does it manage to tell us “why the claims are baseless and how they’ve been debunked.”
Let’s take a closer look at what she did there. In addition to saying she was going to show us something that answered “why” and “how,” she also told us that journalists need to “be more specific.” I, ever the optimist, took the bait and assumed she meant offering proof (yes, I can hear my dad right now asking if I know what happens when you assume things…). Instead, she meant that “journalists” should offer more…
…adjectives and descriptive verbs?
Yes, this “media columnist” has just tried to convince you that, by adding the following adjectives and descriptive verbs to a sentence, the writer of that sentence has just gotten “more specific” and answered your major “why” and “how” questions:
Fraudulent (adjective)
humiliating fashion (adjective)
laughed out (desc. verb)
bend to his will (desc. verb)
seemingly decisive (adj.)
In the world of backyard gossip, sure - those descriptive words could all make a story feel more legitimate. In real journalism, though, feelings don’t matter. Facts do.
Even better? She has killed two birds with one stone and promoted a story that uses words intended to mock, or ridicule, people who believe election fraud occurred (see: “humiliating” & “laughed out of court”). This, as I’ve noted in posts before, is a classic Alinskian technique for attempting to silence people you disagree with. Remember? “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule” (excerpted from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals). As with feelings, a true journalist has no need for ridicule, because facts speak for themselves.
Let’s take this exercise one step further and edit the adjectives out of the sentence and replace the descriptive verbs with something more straightforward / traditionally journalistic:
“By mid-December, President Trump’s claims of a rigged election were failing. Lawsuits were not heard in court. State officials, including Republicans, refused to alter the vote. December 14, the electoral college certified the win for Joe Biden.”
See how much better that reads already? Plus, it’s WAY less cluttered, too. You can actually think straight after you’ve digested it. Imagine that!
Unfortunately, though, it’s still just a bunch of statements, one after the other, without any corresponding proof / factual evidence to back them up. So… while she has indeed given us an example of a statement that literally uses more words than “baseless” or “without evidence,” she’s still not offering readers any more substance to back up those assertions. In order for this for be A+ real, true journalism, readers NEED the following information:
at least one example of a lawsuit that was not heard in court
the name of at least two Republican state officials who refused to alter the vote (since she uses the plural there)
Without such supporting evidence, statements like the ones Ms. Sullivan singled out can unfortunately only be treated as speculation or opinion, or as pushing a narrative.
(*NOTE ABOUT THIS SPECIFIC CASE: I am not saying the unheard lawsuits and the Republicans do not exist; in fact, I know they do… which makes it all the more interesting that a “journalist” wouldn’t have bothered to take the time to include them in his or her piece. Why do you think that is?)
So basically, to recap, Margaret Sullivan’s version of getting “more specific” and answering major “why” and “how” questions means tossing a few more colorful / powerful words into the mix – kind of like “sprinkling” (her word, not mine) bacon bits into a salad to make it more “healthy.” It’s now way more interesting to read, yes. But is it more factual or accurate? Alas / sadly – no.
The good thing about Margaret Sullivan is her columns always seem to have the opposite effect (in my experience, anyway) of what she intends. Instead of convincing media skeptics like me that she is right, she ends up cluing me in on new bad “reporting techniques” that today’s “journalists” are using to try and fleece the general (and unsuspecting) public. The hope of those who, like her, wish to do away with “both sides” journalism is that, if we see this lopsided kind of writing presented often enough to us as “journalism,” we will grow accustomed to it, and eventually think it’s correct… meanwhile forgetting all about pesky little things like facts, or the other sides of a story.
I’d like to say this story is an outlier, but I unfortunately see stories just like it almost every day I spend doing research for this blog. Now you know what to look for, too. Any time you see adjectives and / or colorful, descriptive verbs in a story, that is a BIG red flag, signaling that the writer is either:
trying to push an opinion / narrative, OR
he or she does not have proof / facts to back up what he or she is stating
(OR, in many cases, both)
*P.S. Note the word “emotional” in the “descriptive verb” paragraph at the top of this post. It’s one of the words I found online used to describe the effect these kinds of verbs have on readers. Please keep this word STRONGLY in mind as you begin to critique news stories you read. The whole intent of every single manipulative method I have exposed in this blog, since its inception six months ago, is to make you, the news consumers, more emotional… and less rational. Why? Because emotional news consumers are way more easily manipulated than rational news consumers. Simple as that.
Excellent, as always!