Appropriately in a county named Moore, Dumas is considering putting up a Ten Commandments idol on the courthouse lawn. Supporters include the helpfully-named1 Nort Mowry and Elliot Crabtree.
We’ve mentioned journalistic style books here and there. And in the Judge Roy Moore County News Press article about this foolishness, we see why such standards are necessary. Here’s how the article, penned by Kayte Cook, presented a presentation:
Crabtree pointed out that separation of church and state has gotten out of hand.Now, normally in newspaper writing, the only word used with a quote is “said.” Not “orated,” not “held forth,” not “pontificated”. That’s because all of those words have connotations, while “said” is relatively neutral. Sure, it’s boring and redundant in an article with a lot of quotes, but at least it doesn’t carry a loaded meaning.
Consider how differently readers of the article might react to this sentence:
Separation of church and state has gotten out of hand, Crabtree drooled.In this case “pointed out” makes Crabtree’s rant sound like it had some validity.
The article also refers to this Golden Calf these Dumasians want to worship on their courthouse lawn as a “statue” rather than the far more accurate “idol”.
And that, Mr. Kanelis, is what slant looks like.
spacedark
1Helpful, at least, to a writer who will write a satire ridiculing the whole thing in future, more enlightened, times.
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