Webloggin » It Just Leaks Out

One of my favorite lines from Star Trek : The Next Generation was when the android, Data, gave his interpretation of Shylock’s famous speech: “If you prick me, do I not leak.” It was just so silly, it left me giggling. (I liked it only slightly less than Worf, the stern Klingon warrior, announcing when transported back to Sherwood Forest, “Captain, I am not a merry man.” But that’s a digression….)

It’s the leaking part I’m stuck on. I thought of it when I read a cuddly human interest story about a locally based Lebanese family that safely made it back home from Lebanon, which they were visiting when the war broke out. In addition to getting out of the war zone, they managed to land at Heathrow just when the recent terrorist alert broke out, and British authorities grounded all air traffic. Interestingly, the family got caught at Heathrow because they decided to stay in Lebanon rather than join the evacuation a couple of weeks ago. Despite the fact that their children were with them, they apparently weren’t overwhelmed with fear.

In any event, it’s a decent human interest story about people traveling during “exciting” times. What got me, after this fairly neutral story of their picaresque adventures, was the last line the story’s writer just had to throw in:

As he (the happy father, with children safely returned) spoke, in the background, a Lebanese television network displayed live footage of the latest carnage from the fighting in Lebanon. [Emphasis mine.]

I don’t think I’m being hypersensitive when I consider that word usage just a wee bit biased. In fact, considering Israel’s extraordinary military effort, there’s almost no carnage. And it’s becoming more and more apparent that the “carnage” relayed through video and still images is staged, altered, and out and out faked. (For overwhelming, detailed evidence, just go to Little Green Footballs, which first exposed the iceberg’s tip with the altered Reuters’ photographs.)

I’d like to be surprised that a reporter, who should be aware of these frauds, and who should be at least a little suspicious now about the news reports coming from Lebanon, would instead churn out this kind of biased writing. To me, it was a leakage — a moment when the reporter simply couldn’t contain himself and had to give voice to his feelings on a subject in a way that goes beyond the stories point and veers into personal bias and advocacy. This is the same type of leakage one sees in movie reviews or non-political articles that compulsively slam the President, something I’ve blogged about here and here.

(And yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to blog, but I’m extremely frustrated with my project and needed a break. The break is over now, and I’m going back to my work.)

[Discuss this topic with Bookworm]