How the MSM Twists Language to Blame the Innocent, Mislead Readers

February 21, 2008 | Filed Under 2nd Amendment, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, Military, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

NBC Channel 10 News of Philadelphia, PA has given us a perfect example of how the media misuses words in order to illegitimately blame things and people who are otherwise blameless. This particular story really shows how the media manipulates… or is, perhaps, just plain illiterate at the very least.

The headline begins us on our journey of media manipulation and nonsense. With the proclamation that “French Fries To Blame For SEPTA Station Gang Beating”, we are supposed to be informed that “French fries” are at fault for a beating. I guess it wasn’t the gang-banger punks that were responsible, huh? It was the “French fries”? Already the news piece shies blame away from the humans responsible to an inanimate object; the French fries (a favorite poly in the “gun violence” meme, by the way).

Oh, but it doesn’t stop with just an illogical, misleading headline. The very first few paragraphs caries us further on our journey into absurdity.

PHILADELPHIA — A teenager riding SEPTA home from school said Wednesday she was attacked by a group of teenage girls over French fries, and wanted to thank the good Samaritan she said stopped the beating.

The 16-year-old girl, who was not identified, told NBC 10 News she knew others had been attacked on SEPTA, but said she had no idea she would be the next victim.

So within the first two sentences we see that this sort of violence has been happening more and more on the mass transit in the “City of Brotherly Love,” and that makes the lie to the “French fry” claim… unless people wander around Philly carrying French fries (an obvious item of burning desire, jealousy and passion, of course) at all times?

What the story really shows is that a roving gang of punk girls perpetrated an utterly unprovoked attack and that the “French fries” had no substantive role here at all.

The girl and her friends are students at Philadelphia Girls High School, and got on the Broad Street Subway on Tuesday after school. It was the next stop, which was at Broad and Logan, that 12 girls they didn’t know got on, the girl said. One knocked French fries out of her friend’s hand.

But,wait. Buried at the bottom of the story is the real matter of interest in this tale.

“A lady who was sitting on the train near us decided enough was enough,” the girls said. “She reached into her purse a little bit and moved her hand around as if she had a weapon. She’s screaming at the girls to back up, and the girls yielded.”

The fact that a woman on the train, a passenger uninvolved in the attack, came to the girl’s rescue by pretending to have a gun is what should have been the real focus of this story.

So, now we can see why this news piece is focused on “French fries” because the real story is that the threat of a gun STOPPED a crime! And we certainly can’t expect an MSM outlet to report the truth that a gun (or the threat thereof) is responsible for stopping a crime in progress.

This piece should have been titled “Good Samaritan Stops SEPTA Attack With Threat of Gun,” but we get a headline about French fries, instead.

This story is a perfect example of how the MSM warps our language to hide the truth and promulgates their own version of reality instead of merely reporting the facts.

____________

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston