Because “homocide bomber” could imply that you set off a remote bomb to kill people whereas suicide bomber clearly indicates that the bomber was there with the bomb when he set it off.
And because suicide bomber has been an accepted, understood term for so long and FOX is apparently trying to make some kind of statement, obfuscation be damned.
Thanks for the info on Holloway. I see she’s an attractive blonde. Do average looking people ever go missing? You wouldn’t know it from watching TV. I wonder if an overweight black guy could even get a line in a local paper.
Duffer, the “suicide” aspect of suicide bombings is a significant detail. It means something that a person is willing to take his own life in these actions. Concealing that detail under a bullshit, redundant construction like “homicide bomber” amounts to withholding news and editorializing. Fox News doesn’t like to acknowledge the “suicide” aspect because they’re afraid it might elicit sympathy for the Palestinians. It is not the job of a news organization to decide who does or does not deserve sympathy and it is shoddy, unethical journalism to spin the the news in that way.
I also think it’s unnecessary. I have not exactly seen a groundswell of sympathy and support for suicide bombers in the US.
Yeah, but Dio, however would we distinguish them from all the people who just go strap a bomb on for the sole purpose of committing suicide without any collateral damage?
More importantly, ATTRACTIVE blonde American UPPER MIDDLE CLASS teenager missing [etc.].
I really do feel great sympathy for the family who is I’m sure like most of the viewing audience aware that this girl is probably dead. BUT… what kills me is that they are ALWAYS interviewing her mother or her father or her stepmother or her stepfather or her aunt or some other relative or even a friend of the family when there’s been no real development. “How do you feel about this? Does the family think the Aruban authorities are doing all they could? Do you think [the Dutch kid] knows more than he’s telling?” Blah blah blah. These people aren’t experts, they’re a grieving family and their opinions are always going to be “do more, we hope she’s still alive” just as ours would be.
The Holloway thing reminds me of when Matthew Shepard murder. The same summer Billy Jack Gaither was murdered. Gaither was, by every account, a prince of a human being who left his lucrative job to come back to small town Alabama and take care of his aging parents [who had no idea he was gay], was loved by all who knew him [some even changed their opinions of gay people when he was posthumously outed] and was brutally and viciously murdered solely because he was gay in a premeditated act (complete with body disposal prearranged) by a skinhead. Shepard was- some will flame me for saying this- an arrogant little prick (he’d falsely accused a guy of rape shortly before his death) with major emotional problems who was beaten to death in what was essentially a spontaneous mugging that got way out of hand (I think the fact he was small and obviously well off had more to do with his abduction than his being gay). I’m not saying Shepard wasn’t a tragedy and even, to some extent, a hate crime, but everybody knew about Shepard across the world and he became a martyr while Gaither, a much nicer person whose death was solely a hate crime, was largely overlooked by the media. Shepard was a prestigious-boarding-school graduate who had pouty twink model quality photoes while Gaither was a not-particularly attractive gay redneck. Infuriating the way the media damned near looks through pictures like a casting agent for crime reporting.
I didn’t know who Natalee Holloway was until it was explained in this thread. You know why? Because I don’t watch things I don’t care about. And whether some chick died in Aruba is definetely something I don’t care about. Simple, really.
And if you think I’m implying that I’m a better person because I don’t watch cable news, you’re right, I am.
Damn, you’d be a right nasty one if you did watch cable news, wouldn’t you? (There’s a difference in “I’m not obsessed with the news story” or “I think the media is giving too much time to this” and “teenaged girl abducted and murdered while on vacation, who gives a fuck?”.
Yep. This is probably the silliest slam at FOX I’ve seen yet around here. As with Michael Jackson and other personal interest stories, FOX is generally the channel with the least amount of coverage. Or, at least they lump it mostly into Gretta’s show which is supposed to be police/legal issues oriented.
I’m not crazy about a lot of FOX’s programs, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to tune out CNN or MSNBC because they couldn’t shut up about those stupid stories. CNN, at least this time, isn’t as bad as it was for MJ, but MSNBC just can’t get over the NH story.
Indeed, oddly enough the word “Rove” isn’t on Foxnews.com’s front page at all today. How about that?
No doubt.
You’ve gotta be kidding. Let’s see, it’s July…we can go with the Rove story which is a confusing he said/she said story about a presidential adviser who may or may not have leaked the identity of a Kerry-supporting CIA employee who may or may not have been undercover at the time, with everything depending on a memo while a grand jury conducts investigations, never mind the fact we can only show talking heads of ‘experts’ who have no clue what is really going on, but we can show lots of video of Bush and Rove walking to a helicopter…OR we can go with the cute blonde chick in Aruba who was likely fed to sharks after being slipped an Ecstasy pill by the son of an Aruban judge who is likely covering up for the son…which includes lots and lots of video of beaches and bikinis and perp walks, etc.
You’re a cable news director. The answer is simple. (And, by the way, it’s hardly just Fox News that is hammering away at this story.)
But… but Natalee Halloway is cute! And white! And blonde! And rich! Why do you hate America?
First of all, that’s one long sentence. Second, it’s actually very simple, and people get it (check out the latest polls). I’ll leave this hijack for another thread though.
Polls are meaningless. Ratings are everything. The Aruba case gets ratings, the Rove story does not.
That’s pretty much what we’re complaining about.
Well, the title of the thread implies that Fox News is pushing this story to the exclusion of anything else. But if you’re complaining that viewers are wrong to be interested in the Aruba case then I guess I have no problem with that. Not that I agree with it, mind you. People are interested in what they’re interested in. Not much you can do about it. But it is rather pointless to blame Fox News.
I blame Fox (and the others) for the incessant coverage, and I blame their viewers for validating them. Do you think if Fox had trailed off the story a month ago people would have started a letter campaign demanding more? No, they’d eat up whatever morsel of nonsense Fox decided to serve up next. But they decided to make it The Big Story, because people will tune in to the Big Story. You say it’s big because that’s what people want, so Fox is merely acquiesing - but it’s the other way around.
Plus the coverage is just so damn craven. I went to their site today and saw “New Natalee home video! Exclusive!” They’re making money off this poor girl and her family. And Greta van Botched Facelift actually asked the girl’s mom if she had heard that Natalee was possibly sold into some kind of slave trade. She didn’t say “sex” slave trade, but I think we can all grasp that’s what she meant. She asks this to the girl’s mother? :eek:
[QUOTE=Slacker]
I No, they’d eat up whatever morsel of nonsense Fox decided to serve up next. But they decided to make it The Big Story, because people will tune in to the Big Story. You say it’s big because that’s what people want, so Fox is merely acquiesing - but it’s the other way around.
QUOTE]
Wrong. People are interested so the cable networks are providing it. If people were not interested they’d go somewhere else. The ratings prove this. You say the coverage is ‘craven.’ I’d say that’s exactly the reason this story is grabbing people. The attractive mother holding tearful news conferences is killer stuff.
The main suspect is white.
This is all over cable news for all the cynical reasons mentioned in this thread and others.
Rove is not getting the play you want because after the initial hopeful frenzy of reporting, the investigation is continuing. Nothing new.
As of this posting time, the word “Rove” isn’t on CNN.com’s front page either. Biased much?
Rove is happily at work busily plotting out another Democrat buttfucking for 2006. Nothing will happen to him out of this.