this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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The use of passive voice in the first sentence does a lot of work shifting blame away from the driver and the car centric systems in an "objective" effort.
How about:
@apfelwoiSchoppen @ByteOnBikes Active voice would be, “A driver killed…”
They're both active voice, they just have different verbs.
Yep, high school grammar 101. It isn't that journalists don't know this, it is how they are trained. Shift obvious blame away from parties for objectivity until a verdict or deference to the status quo.
"was killed" is passive.
Yes, we all agree on that fact. The discussion progressed to two different commentors' active voice re-writes of the original sentence.
I would argue the first isn't active voice
"died when the driver of a car hit her" seems passive to me. It's more accurate, but still passive.
Both killed and died are active voice.
@apfelwoiSchoppen But functionally, the victim didn’t die on her own, she died as the direct result of the driver hitting her. For the purpose of accurately portraying who took an action and who was acted upon, it should emphasize the driving, not the dying.
The discussion was active voice vs passive voice, not functionality of active voice vs functionality of differently-worded active voice. They're both still active voice.
@PapaStevesy IMO active voice includes focusing the sentence on the subject that did the action, not the one that was acted upon but by all means let’s argue about grammatical definitions instead of the problem of motorists killing people and journalists normalizing it. 🙄
I mean, you're literally the one who started the argument, being dismissive and condescending about it now just makes you look like a sore loser.
You're the one doing that. Killed/died same difference, but I apologize for not using the same verb as the original quote for clarity.
"was killed" is passive.
Correct. I said killed.
Very interesting, thank you. I was wondering if that also happens in other countries. It is sadly the norm in Germany when reporting car accidents.
Even the word "accident" is part of that downplaying.
Somebody told me that at her hospital they don't say "accident" since it's always preventable. They say "collision"
"Negligence" works too.
The army shifted to this verbiage as well from “accidental discharge” to “negligent discharge” when at the clearing barrels or while on patrol.
Also increased the punishment, and it helped quite a bit in reducing the knuckleheads. No longer a “whoops! Mah bad”
As an old and retired medic, I've done my share of "accidents". There wasn't a single time that I stepped out of my amp-a-lamps and surveyed a scene that I couldn't see the point where someone(s) got stupid. And then things went sidways after that. There is lots of stupid in this world.
There are no accidents. Just people doing stupid things.
Upvote for a better headline and for n-browser translation
Used to subversively reinforce power or the status quo:
"Police killed/murdered by man." "Man was killed in police raid."
"Israeli killed/murdered by Palestinians." "Palestians were killed in airstrike on hospital targeting Hamas."
Definitely normal here in the US, too. Unfortunately.
I suspect the tone is used so they aren't sued for stuff. I understand it but I disagree on their usage of it.
"Car driver kills doctor on bicycle"
“Car driver kills children's doctor on bicycle”
Works too, though more specific on assignment of judgment. Part of the point for me is to assign blame to the system in which we all must live.
We can make that point in the article, the headline is for drawing attention
I'm not critiquing the headline, I'm critiquing the first sentence.
Oh true. I was writing a headline lol
They would probably need a conviction before they could publish that.
What that she died? Absolutely not. There is no accusation or assignment of guilt. It tells what happened, assignment comes later. A driver did hit her and kill her, for which there can be many reasons it occurred.
While I agree with the car centric aspect of this, you should read the article. The top bullets are more specific, and the driver may have had a medical incident.
The bullets don't say that now, but it's possible they changed the article (they should indicate the changes made, but I don't see any notes, so who knows). Currently the bullets say:
Barbara Friedes, a 30-year-old pediatric doctor, was killed on Wednesday when she was hit by a car while riding a bike near Rittenhouse Square.
Friedes was recently named a chief resident at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
At the time of the deadly crash, police say, Friedes was wearing a helmet and was riding in a protected bike lane. The driver of the vehicle that struck Friedes has not yet been charged.
There's a comment in the article that says they don't know if there was a medical issue:
My frustration here is that "medical issue" is ALWAYS the conclusion people jump to when a driver hits a cyclist, as if there's no possible way a driver could do anything wrong - despite all evidence to the contrary. "Medical issue" almost never turns out to be the actual reason. It's almost always drunk, distracted, just hates cyclists so much that they attack them, or some combination of the three. (There are also instances of cyclists being at fault, for example pulling out in front of a car. Those are rare, too, but they do happen.)
I recognize that a sudden, previously unknown medical condition could strike a driver, causing the driver to lose control and inflict damage and injuries. But it's an extremely rare event.
Thanks, I did. Then I wrote the comment, copied the quote directly from the article. It is the first sentence of the article. I also said the cyclist died, made no indication that the person was "murdered" or anything.
That's a because there is no speculation that she was murdered. If the driver had a stroke, or some other medical incident, it would not be murder.
Yes. That's what I said.
Well, sort of. You edited your response to add a lot more context.
An hour before you commented.
Sounds like lemmy.world was behind on federation again. Booo