The World's Fastest Man is Not Gay, He's Homosexual! by AmericanFactotum Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 11:02:19 AM MST
Call this one a misadventure in framing.
If you're like me, a little piece of you dies every time a Republican or even a self-styled Independent Democrat engages in a framing device such as substituting "Democrat Congress" for the correct "Democratic Congress." The goal of this wordplay is to both emphasize the "rat" in Democrat in the hopes of tarnishing a political party as untrustworthy and, more sinisterly, to try to lessen the usage of the word "democratic" in political discourse.
But sometimes framing has some unexpected results.
Enter OneNewsNow.com, a biased news site funded by the AFA, or American Family Association, a far right-wing (and James Dobson-friendly) organization whose own web site decries the "homosexual agenda."
As some discovered over the weekend and this morning, the OneNewsNow.com site has a filter set up on its news results that automatically changes the word "gay" to "homosexual." I think it's an odd substitution, but I'm sure they've done some kind of research that shows that "gay" has a more positive connotation than the more literal "homosexual."
How did this attempt at framing backfire on OneNewsNow.com and the AFA? The answer comes from track-and-field.
When Tyson Gay crossed the finish line in the men's 100 meters yesterday, the crowd at Hayward Field gasped. The clock displayed 9.68 seconds. Everyone at the US Olympic track and field trials knew what that meant. Gay ran the fastest 100 ever, regardless of conditions....
Engage homosexual filter! To people visiting OneNewsNow.com, this was the headline:
Whoops! Beyond looking small and stupid, OneNewsNow.com might have opened itself up to litigation. Perhaps Mr. Gay can sue the AFA for libel if he doesn't care for a possible misrepresentation of his sexuality.
It's good to see a reaffirmation of the first law of political web sites: they are only as smart and tolerant as the people who develop them.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
Although the first paragraph there is petty bullshit on the whole(worrying about that kind of thing), the actual story present is incredibly funny. And there's also a chance that they change gay to homosexual for political correctness rather than because it sounds worse, especially if the site posts editorials and is very biased(avoid negative publicity, etc).
_________________ stop light plays its part, so I would say you've got a part
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
This kinda reminds me of the time when the Los Angeles Times automatically edited an entertainment review when the writer meant to use a term along the lines of "pro-life affirming" but it got changed to "anti-abortion affirming". Ah, the follies of technology.
LAT's 'anti-abortion' opera Kevin Roderick • Bio • Email
Here's why reporters want newspaper corrections to make clear that an editor is at fault for an error introduced to their copy. Last week, the L.A. Times' Mark Swed filed a review of the opera "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" at the Music Center. He wrote that the Richard Strauss epic is "an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean..." But when it ran in the paper, pro-life had been changed to anti-abortion.
Swed was reportedly mortified, since the opera is not remotely about abortion. On Feb. 25, the Times ran this correction:
Quote:
Opera review -- A review of Los Angeles Opera's "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" in Tuesday's Calendar section incorrectly characterized the work as "anti-abortion." In fact, there is no issue of abortion in the opera, which extols procreation.
Swed was again not amused, since his name was on the piece -- he had been made to look stupid to his readers and to the opera community. If they thought he had misread the work, it might affect how opera fans, players and producers regard him in the future. He apparently demanded a second correction, which ran the following day:
Quote:
Opera review -- A correction in Wednesday's paper about the review of Los Angeles Opera's "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" incorrectly implied that it was the reviewer who characterized the work as "anti-abortion" in Tuesday's Calendar. As the correction should have made clear, the lead paragraph submitted by the reviewer was incorrectly changed to include the term "anti-abortion." There is no issue of abortion in the opera, which extols procreation.
Ah, but there's more. Copy editors and others have never liked that editing mistakes are made note of in the paper, while blame is rarely assigned for reporting mistakes. I've always felt that the more information you can give readers the better, because in fact many politicians and other public figures who deal with many reporters are keeping score on who makes which mistakes. Some bloggers do too. But in response to the opera gaffe, the LAT's Readers' Representative sent out a missive reminding the staff that Times policy is not to clarify where in the chain the error occurred, based on the belief that "readers don't care."
That memo follows:
Quote:
Just a reminder: The Times' policy is that corrections simply correct the misinformation without assigning blame. The thinking is that readers don't care who made the mistake. Here's how the policy spells it out:
Corrections will not assign blame. (If a reporter on a story that has been corrected because of an editing error believes his or her credibility will be hurt with a source, he or she may ask an editor to contact the source to exonerate the reporter.)
Corrections should not say if it was an editing error or a reporting error, and should not imply fault to a wire service by mentioning it in the correction.
The policy, and a memo on writing corrections, can be found in the staff news basket...
If you have questions, please let me know. Thanks.
Jamie Gold Readers' Representative
Tagline: As of today, March 3, at 4 p.m., the erroneous story than ran in the paper remains on the LAT website with no correction attached.
Unfortunately, it's so elementary, and the big time investors behind the drive in the stock market aren't so stupid. This isn't the false economy of 2000.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Thread of the Day
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
I have no idea what faggots are, but I'm too afraid to type "Faggot" into google image search
Actually I think I might be less troubled by the presence of "faggot" there than as by the fact that a food company is willingly calling itself "Mr. Brain's" (especially considering the look of the meal on that particular package)
I have no idea what faggots are, but I'm too afraid to type "Faggot" into google image search
Actually I think I might be less troubled by the presence of "faggot" there than as by the fact that a food company is willingly calling itself "Mr. Brain's" (especially considering the look of the meal on that particular package)
The Faggot Family's last name is Doody.
_________________ It takes a big man to make a threat on the internet.
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