September 10, 2004
media hedging
You've just got to love it when the media hedges its bets. Defective Yeti has a great little article with the following examples:
Two stories on the morning's wire: Clinton Absence Spells Either Boost or Bust for Kerry and Cheney May Help or Hinder Bush's Chances.- wink [September 10, 2004 07:39 PM]
Jeremy Pierce says:
These aren't mere tautologies, though. They seem to be asserting that it's not going to be an in-between sort of thing. You might have really thought that Cheney wouldn't really help or hurt Bush much. You might have really thought that Clinton's absence would have little effect on Kerry. So it's not as if they're saying nothing. They're saying it will have a noticeable effect.
They may further be saying this to tell us that it's too hard to tell which way it would go. That's information with real content, just to know that we can't foresee how either of things will go. It's still funny to see such seemingly obvious headlines, but it's not contentless or uninformative, and I'm sure the details they give in the stories aren't worthless either.
w1re says:
In another instance of media hedging, the CNN homepage as viewed around 12:25 PM on Monday, Sept. 13, has these two headlines side-by-side:
• U.S. crime rate steady at record lows
• Assault weapons ban expires tonight
Yes, folks, you too can do your part in keeping the crime rate from dropping off the face of the planet altogether.