Monday, August 02, 2010

Yes Media Matters, it Sounds Weird

The M&M crew is all atwitter over a WaPo reviewer's criticism of Christiane Amanpour's 'In Memoriam' segment yesterday on "This Week":
"We remember all who died in war this week, and the Pentagon released a list of eleven US service members killed in Afghanistan"
Here's the clip that has them in a twit:



And here's the WaPo column. According to them his apparent dislike for Amanpour over Jake Tapper, and the fact he pointed out her poor choice of phrasing clearly makes him a dastardly neocon or something.

But one might think the leader of the reality-based community would recognize grammar errors. "In war" connotes all war, not just our war on terror, or the war in Afghanistan specifically. Also, using the word "and" between the first sentence and the second acts to disassociate the Pentagon's list of fallen troops and her memoriam. Better: "We remember all those who died in battle this past week fighting the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon released a list...", or, "we remember all who died in the war in Afghanistan this week, and the Pentagon released a list..", etc.

Of course that would leave no doubt Amanpour specifically meant to memorialize just our soldiers and not anyone who died in war (which could include Talibanis). There are always several wars going on all over the world but most Americans only care about the ones our guys/gals are involved in. "This Week" is an American show. And that's the main question here--whether this seasoned and professional journalist parsed her wording carefully so as not to offend anyone overseas as she brings a new and admittedly international perspective to the show or just used poor grammar, as MM evidently seems to be saying.

No comments: