One sentence from a Pittsburgh radio newscast startled me when I heard it in the late '80s: "The slime over there have come up with another piece of junk that we're supposed to believe."
At first, I thought the newscaster must be interviewing someone with a strong bias against a propaganda-spewing company. Then, I realized it was actually the newscaster reporting a story. I would still like to know the context of that sentence. When do you ever hear a reputable newscast that contains such slanted phrasing? The newscaster's blatant contempt for the organization about whom he was reporting reminded me of an exercise from my high school newspaper journalism class. The teacher asked us to read selected excerpts from articles and underline statements that contained bias. One of the most obviously biased statements: "Police arrested the miserable wretch." I still wonder if that newscaster completed such an assignment but learned the wrong lesson from it.
