The reportage dichotomy keeps coming up. Who’s in charge: the people in the article or the people creating the article? How about a few terse examples, with questions we can consider over lunch.
As noted yesterday, a school stopped what it called a gang initiation. In it local officials again say real gangs — just like on TV — are mushrooming in our bucolic region, using this hazing as an example. Or was it hazing? Maybe the hazing of facts is the goal, so to speak. The evidence seems sketchy: Was it an initiate or some hapless loser getting beaten up? The unasked and certainly unanswered question is: Are our sky-is-falling leaders using "trouble in River City" (caution, audio) for political ends?
Here is a sunnier example: Pinnacle Hills Promenade opened last fall. What is the Promenade? Its executives tell the media it’s a “lifestyle center.” Sounds like an assisted living facility for the elderly or disabled, no? But the phrase has a specific if little known meaning at this point, says this article. Promenade’s press releases call it a “retail, dining, entertainment, office and recreation destination.” Sounds like one of those Six Flags Over Disney amalgamations. What Promenade is is a shopping center. Technically it’s a mall, but commonly mall means all-enclosed. Thus shopping center should get the nod in the Mass Media, referring to open-air stores, shops and restaurants (movies, too) with common parking. Yet shouldn’t the managers get to call it what they want, at the risk of confusing people?
If an expert on Iraq comes to town, should the press after the pro-U.S.-presence speech call up anti-war experts and include them in the report? Or does “here are both sides” that we see often on TV and read in print create an implication that we are being winked at? Is balance balanced?
Do we have to call it a community college; why not junior college? Active Years, a terrific regional magazine, now insists it is AY. An eclectic local gift shop, Dark Star Visuals, now calls itself DSV; neither name explains its primary inventory comprises beads, but isn’t the name spelled out more enticing?
To me, these have a common element: Who gets dibs on terminology? Who wants to split an order of fries? -30-
