zero 0000 wrote:
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
"Many people regard ..." carries a strong POV wallop It applies the
logical fallacy that if a significant majority consider something to
be
true, then it must in fact be true.
No it doesn't. If something is true, then it is true. If in fact a great many people say and think a certain way, then the statement needs to be made.
It isn't the truth of it that I am questioning. I am questioning that the "statement needs to be made". Consider whether you would like to see the statement "Some people consider that his teeth are crooked" in (say) the article on George Bush even if the truth of that statement could be positively established. I guess that you would take it out, which (if I'm right) shows that the mere truth of a statement is not really your criterion for including it. You must have an additional reason. Not referring specificially to yourself, I suggest that the main reason that people include statements like "Some people believe that X is a terrorist" is that they WANT to attach that label to that person and not because they have a disinterested intention to report a fact. They should instead devote more effort to reporting hard data about X ("X has been responsible for many attacks on civilians, including ... and ..."), then readers who like labels like "terrorism" will have no trouble attaching them. I think this shows respect for the intelligence of the reader.
In this case, I think the statement does need to be made. OBL is widely referred to as "terrorist" or "terrorist mastermind". If it were particularly notorious and commonly discussed that GWB had crooked teeth, or if perhaps he were widely referred to as "the man with the crooked teeth", we should of course report that fact as well. But as far as I know, that's not the case, so we don't.
If a label is very widely attached to something, we ought to report that the label is very widely attached, and if possible discuss at least briefly who commonly attaches it. Otherwise, we're very conspicuously omitting a well-known and relevant fact. In the case of OBL, the label is relevant to a number of worldwide conflicts, and especially relevant to US politics, both domestic and as regards foreign relations. In short, OBL may or may not be a terrorist, but it is a fact that he is called such by nearly all governments in the world, and by public opinion in the West, and that fact is one that ought to be reported, as it is both relevant and has important consequences.
-Mark