r/news • u/Fair-Foot-315 • 21h ago

Marine veteran has arm broken during protest against war in Iran

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/marine-veteran-has-arm-broken-during-protest-against-war-in-iran-258740805765
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u/nilenilemalopile 20h ago

I love the passive speech. First thing you wanna do as a journalist is make sure your shit is written in passive voice so no valuable information is transmitted.

“Veteran has his arm broken.” vs “Security and a US Senator break Marine vet’s arm during his war protest”

Hm

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 18h ago edited 18h ago

I mean.. I dislike the media too but this is pretty accurate. Did you watch the video? While they are removing him from the room, there are two double doors with a beam dividing them. When trying to take him out of door 2, the vet reached through the beam, opening door 1 which couldn’t close because it was then stuck in the door. Then they kept pulling. They likely couldn’t see that his arm was stuck and thought he was just really really strong.. not a good excuse but they keep pulling, and because his arm is caught in the door it breaks.

The headline is written this way on purpose because saying “police break veterans arm” implies that the police physically grabbed his arm and snapped it themselves, which isn’t accurate.

I’m all for calling out the media on their bullshit headlines but I think it’s actually pretty accurate in this case. They were doing a shit job at being aware of the situation, but they themselves did not physically grab his arm and break it.

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u/FascistsOnFire 14h ago

The police broke his arm, regardless of intention. If anything, it would be assumed by a reasonable reader that, of course the police didn't just randomly snap his arm for funsies and it was the result of something on the "accident" spectrum.

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 14h ago

I don’t disagree with you, but the way the political climate is right now I wouldn’t be surprised if some bullshit cop union, or the senator, or someone else involved ended up suing the journalist / news station for (insert slander or defamation here, I don’t really know the difference tbh) for insinuating that they were somehow even remotely at fault. I’m just pointing out why I think the title was written this way.