Saturday, May 01, 2004
 
Passive Voice as An Art Form

The front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which arrived on my driveway:

Post-Dispatch early edition

Man, you have to love the artistry in the headline JOBLESS FATHER IS KILLED AFTER BANK IS ROBBED. When an armed robber menaces bank tellers and guards with a shotgun and then points it at responding police officers, it's important to remove all assignment of blame from the robber and build a morally neutral headline. If anyone is to blame, it's obviously George W. Bush, whose faltering economy and job destruction has led honorable fathers to desperate acts. I guess the editor who concocted this headline was being even handed in not blaring POLICE GUN DOWN JOBLESS FATHER AFTER BANK IS ROBBED.

That, friends, is a work of art in passive voice.

I notice that the online recreation of the front page looks different:

Post-Dispatch later edition

JOBLESS FATHER IS KILLED AFTER ROBBING BANK still runs a little sympathetic for the bank robber. The headline for the online story isn't much better: Robber is killed outside bank, police say, which uses the "authority figures allege" asterisk to show that the crusading headline writers at the Post-Dispatch won't be duped into thinking that a man with a shotgun and a bagful of money coming out of a bank is anything but a victim of oppression by a heartless police force/society/something other than his own bad choices.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:34 PM
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home
 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."