It's not confusion. It's that your evidence doesn't support your claim. Again, "In 2009" <> "always".
And, yes, passive voice in journalism IS a problem. Tim Curran, for example, calls it simply "bad journalism" (http://blog.timcurran.com/?p=202) but the short-and-long nearly its only legitimate journalistic use (headlines excepted) is when protecting one's sources. Which, presumably, is not the case here.
It's also an easy fix. E.g., "Many groups have criticized the Vatican's stance on condoms" is active, avoids the overreaching "always" (and is hence supportable), and is three words shorter to boot.
I stand corrected on the headline. I read a number of Yahoo! news stories on the subject but missed the one with your headline. And, yes, I posted corrections for most of them.
Yes, I, too, have seen many variations of Benedict's words reported. That was, in fact, pretty much my initial point. We can report what other reporters say Benedict said or we can report what he actually said. The former is (yes, in my opinon) simply journalistic narcissism. The latter is, with Google so easily at our fingertips, ridiculously easy. If you have nothing original to add, why not simply post a link to the original story?
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It's not confusion. It's that your evidence doesn't support your claim. Again, "In 2009" <> "always".
And, yes, passive voice in journalism IS a problem. Tim Curran, for example, calls it simply "bad journalism" (http://blog.timcurran.com/?p=202) but the short-and-long nearly its only legitimate journalistic use (headlines excepted) is when protecting one's sources. Which, presumably, is not the case here.
It's also an easy fix. E.g., "Many groups have criticized the Vatican's stance on condoms" is active, avoids the overreaching "always" (and is hence supportable), and is three words shorter to boot.
I stand corrected on the headline. I read a number of Yahoo! news stories on the subject but missed the one with your headline. And, yes, I posted corrections for most of them.
Yes, I, too, have seen many variations of Benedict's words reported. That was, in fact, pretty much my initial point. We can report what other reporters say Benedict said or we can report what he actually said. The former is (yes, in my opinon) simply journalistic narcissism. The latter is, with Google so easily at our fingertips, ridiculously easy. If you have nothing original to add, why not simply post a link to the original story?
Thanks for your reply.
November 26, 2010 - 7:46pmThis Comment
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