Thread: Weird News
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Old 09-05-2008, 01:35 PM   #160
BigV
Goon Squad Leader
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flint View Post
We're conditioned to assume that a news story is a compact summary of the relevant material, which has been scoured over by an editor to remove superfluous verbage; therefore we assume that any sentences contained are actually pertinent to the story.

One of my least favorite tricks of the journalistic trade is to include a total non sequitur in the story, and let the assumed reason for including the sentence create a connection that doesn't exist, or can't be demonstrated directly.

This one is very popular: "couldn't be reached for comment" equals "GUILTY AS HELL."
Flint:

Since the reader creates that connection only in his own head, how much of the responsibility for the unsupported conclusion does he bear?
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