And Now, Your News Media Pet Peeve of the Week

[akujunkan]

Or at least mine. Here are some phrases that set my teeth on edge every time I encounter them.

The first, courtesy of Veep Cheater-- I mean, Cheney:

A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more.

The last time I checked, people from MANY nationalities died in the attacks on the WTC. Yes, I understand that it's necessary to use shorthand when talking about such events, but in a case like this, one could just as easily substitute 'people' for 'Americans,' and the accuracy quotient would go up about 500%.

My perspective is probably different than most. But as someone who's spent over two of the three years since the WTC living abroad, I can say firsthand that there is a LOT of anger and disgust directed at America and her citizens, from all quarters - Britain, contiental Europe, and many of the countries I've visited in Asia. I think no small part of this anger has to do with America's (perceived and real) hypocrisy. The phrase I've just quoted would be one example of that hypocrisy. The WTC attacks were perpetrated against an assumed American target on American soil. But the victims were not limited to America. The callous claiming of all of them for this country alone by some polititions and [insert cause du jour here]-mongers is not building any good will for America abroad. It may in fact be bartering a good deal of it away.

The second tooth grinding-inducing phrase is one I first heard bandied about on the one-year anniversary of the WTC, although I've run into it many times since. News anchors, reporters, and magazine authors talk about the 'widows and [orphaned] children' of the vicitms of the WTC - as if not a single woman died there. Again, I understand that shorthand must be used, but again, one could (more easily, in fact) substitute 'survivors' for 'widows and children' and increase the accuracy quotient several hundred percent.

The wording here is important, and was probably even more so as we were headed into Iraq. After all, the noble suffering and grim perserverance of the war widow is as much a part of our American mythology as apple pie. But the WTC wasn't war, at least not in the conventional sense, and the WTC tragedy left just as many widowers - and more bereaved parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and friends - as widows. And yet, nothing arouses sympathy and righteous anger as much as a gendered appeal to old arche/stereotypes. The language used invalidates the deaths of all those women as well as their survivors.

That will be all.