Press Critique: More Word Choice Follies

Passing Opinion Off as Neutral Reporting is Bad Writing

Today’s lesson on word choice comes from The Washington Post, which published a story advancing a speech in which Vice President — and Democratic presidential nominee — Kamala Harris was set to unveil price controls designed to manage the cost of groceries.

The Post — like The New York Times — appears to be asking their reporters to become more creative in their writing. The upshot is not a more interesting approach to storytelling, but the kind of overwriting and overly broad — and cliched — categorizing that should raise questions of bias among readers.

This kind of journalistic writing drives me crazy. It pretends at objectivity but uses language that is not so subtly presents the writer’s point of view.

Adjectives and adverbs — and most other qualifiers — insert the writer into the story. They imply point of view.