How to Slant the News

The Daily News headline reads, "Rudy Giuliani says that black children are the 'real danger' to their communities, not police."

What did Giuliani really say? Even in the News's excerpted quote, it is clear the above headline is a deliberate lie: the "real danger" to the black community is "that black kid who is going to shoot you,"

"Kid" and "child" do not have the same denotation! I can say to my thirty-year-old friend, "Hey kid, what's up?" "Hey child, what's up? is not at all an equivalent expression. Willie Mays was the "Say Hey Kid." If he had been called "The Say Hey Child," that would have been an insult.

"Child" is applied to people up to puberty or so. "Kid" really applies to anyone who is young compared to the speaker: "He's just a kid at this game."

So when Giuliani says there is a threat from "black kids," this could mean someone 20 or even 25 years old. When the Daily News distorts that into "children," it makes it seem like Giuliani thinks black five-year-olds are a big threat.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Libertarians, My Libertarians!

"Machine Learning"

"Pre-Galilean" Foolishness