What’s wrong with the word ‘militant’?
Tom Gross, a former Middle East correspondent for Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, moots a drearily familiar argument in the Wall Street Journal: What is the motivation of journalists in trying to mangle language — such as going out of their way to refer to terrorists as "militants," as one Mumbai story on yesterday’s Times of London ...
Tom Gross, a former Middle East correspondent for Britain's Sunday Telegraph, moots a drearily familiar argument in the Wall Street Journal:
Tom Gross, a former Middle East correspondent for Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, moots a drearily familiar argument in the Wall Street Journal:
What is the motivation of journalists in trying to mangle language — such as going out of their way to refer to terrorists as "militants," as one Mumbai story on yesterday’s Times of London Web site seemed to do? Do they somehow wish to express sympathy for these murderers, or perhaps make their crimes seem almost acceptable? How are we going to effectively confront terrorists when we can’t even identify them as such?
Elsewhere in the piece, Gross does manage to cite some egregious examples of media figures seeming to go out of their way to avoid using the word "terrorist," but I must confess that I simply do not understand the obsession some press critics have with the word "militant."
It’s a perfectly accurate description of people who shoot innocent civilians, and it can also be applied to people who attack police officials and soldiers. It can accurately describe leaders of terrorist groups who may not be personally involved in conducting attacks, but are nonetheless "militant." I don’t see the word having any positive connotations whatsoever. Do you?
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