Journalism is about sharing plain facts as clearly and as widely as possible.
Its great enemy is euphemism.
No one wants to waste time decoding deliberately deceptive language or reading between the lines just to understand the basic facts. Unfortunately, everyone is being forced to do both nowadays.
Just look at the New York Times and Associated Press’s coverage of a recent child abduction case. The FBI arrested the father of a 10-year-old boy on charges of international parental kidnapping. But because the accused identifies as transgender, the corresponding news coverage is filled with pronoun-respecting activist-speak—the kind that undersells the story, muddles the who’s who, and even turns the accused into a sympathetic character.
For a story involving such a serious allegation as this one, the Times headline quite nearly framed the FBI as the bad guys: “U.S. Sends Plane to Cuba to Get Child in Transgender Custody Case.” The AP chose: “Trump administration flies 10-year-old back from Cuba amid custody fight involving gender identity.”
Neither headline is false in the strictest sense, yet both are masterpieces of evasion.
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