Activists descended on Canberra to protest the ongoing Northern Territory intervention. The Sydney Morning Herald via AAP writes:
The protest was over the federal government intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in response to harrowing claims of widespread child sex abuse.
My issue here is the encroachment of editorial comment into news reporting. It may just be me, but I feel the use of ‘harrowing’ betrays the authors own views – something journalists are supposed to steer clear of when presenting news.
Now, it is not my intention to debate whether the claims that sparked the NT intervention were harrowing or not. There are opinions, there are emotions. People have them. They might choose to use the word ‘harrowing’, or they might not. The point remains, this is an unnecessarily emotive word in an otherwise factual paragraph.
The comment isn’t needed. It was enough to say ‘claims of widespread child sex abuse’. They are the facts, and that is what the journalist should have reported. If the story had yet to meet its adjective quota, perhaps the author could have spoken of ‘confronting claims’ of child sex abuse? Maybe ‘serious allegations’?
For me, the use of ‘harrowing’ seems to convey an ideological opinion. It sets a tone that clouds the rest of the piece. We’re talking about the intervention. The intervention was a response to claims. The claims were harrowing. Awful. People were shocked. And now these activists are protesting that?
Just by including one emotion-tugging, value-laden word, as reader I got the sense that the journo didn’t consider the protest to be particularly legitimate or worthy.
The issue is, was that really for them to decide?
On a further note:
[The measures] include the compulsory quarantining of half of all welfare payments to ensure the money is not spent on grog, gambling or drugs.
Grog? Not… not alcohol? Not ‘money spent on drinking, gambling or drugs’? It bothers me that this colloquialism is used. Dare I ask – would they have chosen ‘grog’ if we were talking about non-Aboriginal communities?
