I have decided to continue my
series of posts on errors committed by the media. See also my posts, Media Errors on Iraq and
Afghanistan, from March of 2009, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2009/03/media-errors-on-afghanistan-and-iraq.html,
Misleading Media Phrases, from May of 2009, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2009/05/misleading-media-phrases.html,
and More Media Errors, from August of 2010, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-media-errors.html. Most of the errors identified in this post
have been initiated by the media, but some are often committed by the public
and have been propagated by the generally ignorant media.
“Robbery” vs. “Burglary”
Robbery is theft by violence
or threat of violence, whereas burglary means breaking and entering into
a property for the purpose of committing a crime therein. Note: the crime a burglar intends to commit
need not necessarily be theft. The
difference is between a violent crime and a non-violent crime, a felony and a
misdemeanor. Additionally, a building or
vehicle cannot be “robbed,” as only people can be robbed. The confusion the media causes by failing to
make this major distinction between the two crimes causes many people to
misreport the crime when contacting first responders, which triggers an
incorrect response on the part of the first responders.
“Town Hall” vs. “Town
Hall-style”
A town hall meeting is an official assembly of residents in order to
govern their municipality. Elected
officials, other than municipal officers calling a meeting for such a purpose,
who conduct informal meetings with citizens, are not thereby exercising such an
administrative function. Furthermore, candidates
for public office cannot exercise any such power. Such elected officials or candidates,
therefore, when convening an assembly in which questions and comments are taken
from the floor thereby conduct town-hall
style meetings, not “town hall meetings.”
“Imploded” vs.
“Collapsed”
An explosion is the violent ejection of matter
from the point of its source, whereas an implosion
is the drawing in of matter to that point (such as the filling of a
vacuum). The confusion about the proper usage
of implosion arises from the metaphoric
use of that word to describe a demolition as if by implosion, whereby the
explosive charges are set in such a manner that the building collapses upon
itself, instead of outwardly, in order to avoid collateral damage. As a result, many people wrongly associate implosion with a collapse, especially one that is upon something’s own weight, and
thus consider these two unrelated words as synonyms, or at least that implosion is an appropriate metaphor
for such a collapse.
Therefore, many
people, especially in the media, describe various events as examples of
something having “imploded.” For
example, they describe the collapse of the Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union as an “implosion,” but the opposite was
true. Neither Communism nor the Soviet Union attracted anyone or anything towards them,
but repelled people away from them as they were revealed to be unattractive. They collapsed both by their own weight and a
significant push from the efforts of anti-Communists. Indeed, it would be expressed better, for
example, that the Soviet Union “exploded,” as
its constituent parts all broke away, but for the fact that they left willingly
instead of being violently ejected.
Similarly, it was stated that former United States Speaker of the House
of Representatives Newt Gingrich’s campaign for the Republican nomination for
President had “imploded” in 2011 when much of his senior staff resigned. Again, this example is one of a collapse, not
an implosion, as his campaign was not drawing anyone in – until later, when he
was twice the frontrunner, which suggests that the resignations did not even
truly represent a collapse, but a restructuring. More recently, the Democratic Party has been
described as having “imploded” for its losing effort to recall Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker, a Republican.
Although the election did draw in funds and volunteers to both sides, it
is more accurate to describe the losing party to have “collapsed” than to have
imploded, especially considering that the successful Republicans drew in more
ideas and funds. None of these examples come
close to representing implosions.
The example
of describing Greece
as having “imploded” is a less inaccurate example. Although the metaphor is intended to explain the
Greek fiscal and economic collapse, a true monetary implosion is taking place,
in a sense, as Greece draws
in loans of hundreds of billions of euros from the European Monetary Union and
its supporters in order to bail the Hellenic
Republic
I daresay
that much of the media is itself in the process of collapsing, not imploding,
as people are drawn away from it instead of toward it. The only thing the media is drawing towards
itself is shame for its bias and ignorance.
No comments:
Post a Comment