28859: Leiderman re: 28853 -- "spate of violence" = "touch of murder"? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leiderman@mindspring.com


8 August 2006

Dear tolerant Readers:

 I noticed an ambiguity in the first paragraph of the Associated Press
 article today, describing the murder and kidnap in Port-au-Prince -- is
 "spate of violence" a quote from the Italian Foreign Ministry or is it
 the AP writer's choice of words?  Both are unidentified, continuing a
 weakness of posts to this list that prevents us from tracing the news to
 the source(s).

 Certainly, "spate of violence" is not apt to what's happening in Haiti
 now.  What next?  "Touch of murder"?  "Pesky poverty"?  "Flirting case of
 HIV/AIDS"?  We expect this twisted language of minimization from a
 realtor, a tourism bureau or an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but we should be
 zero tolerant when it comes to news coverage, or when passing it on to
 others without comment.

thanks,

Stuart Leiderman
leiderman@mindspring.com

- - - - - - -

 ROME, Aug 8 (AP) -- Gunmen in Haiti have killed an Italian businessman
 and kidnapped his wife amid a spate of violence in the impoverished
 Caribbean nation, the Italian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. <snip>