Friday, August 04, 2006
Choose your words carefully
Tibor R. Machan, a libertarian philosopher, dissects an Associate Press story that used the phrase “animal rights.” It’s a ridiculous phrase that news people use without thinking, as they do so many terms promoted by people with agendas to push.
Mr. Machan writes:
To say that animals have rights is like saying that animals have guilt, or moral and legal duties, or can engage in insult or commit murder; none of that makes any sense outside of imaginative fiction or fantasy (like that produced by Walt Disney and thousands of children’s book authors). At its best, talk of “animal rights” is moral hype. It involves claiming for animals something that is false so as to bring to light what could in fact be true, namely, that human beings often abuse them, treat them inhumanely. But it is utterly confusing to mistake the hype for truth.
You can read the full article here.
I agree with Mr. Machan. Careful writers should not use the phrase “animal rights” outside quotation marks.
An even more frequently misused term is the word “victim.”
Some reporters routinely use this word to refer to anyone who has been physically hurt.
Let’s say a burglar breaks into a house, intent on robbery, rape and murder. But his prey turns out to be armed and shoots the burglar. The story appears in the newspaper, and the reporter promptly labels the burglar “the victim” merely because he has a gunshot wound.
This kind of writing is–to use Tibor R. Machan’s phrase—journalistic malpractice.
