A Grumpy Old Man rails against journalese

Thought I would share this, from Grumpy Old Men, the Official Handbook by Stuart Prebble:

Recently I heard a reporter referring to a burglar's 'fatal error' in leaving his DNA at the scene, and found myself muttering, 'Who died?' People are always doing everything 'at this moment in time' rather than 'now'. No report is anything other than 'in-depth'. No insight is less than 'profound'. No crisis anything less than 'serious' – what kind of crisis isn't serious? Every problem is 'spiralling out of control'. Every fire is a 'blaze'. Every rescue is 'heroic'. Every death from cancer follows 'a brave struggle'. Every day when a tragedy occurred was 'that fateful day'. No report is less than 'damning'.

4 comments:

Laura Payne said...

How very true.

Blue said...

I second that.

Anonymous said...

so all reports are both damning and in-depth?

JD (The Engine Room) said...

Looks like it - unless I've got the quote wrong...