Hacker News Reader

Passive-voice is frequently nonfactual. Cars do not run people over (unless they are rolling, and not being driven); guns do not shoot people (unless they experience a mechanical malfunction). This phrasing is _designed_ to mislead, to divert blame from the responsible parties, and has no place in the vast majority of news stories.

View on HN

I disagree many times it's often the only 100% factually correct statement. Person A was run over by a car. Person B was arrested at the scene sitting behind the wheel. The reporter often only has that information to go on. They can not know 100% for sure that Person B ran over Person A.

2 weeks later camera footage comes out showing Person C driving over Person A, getting out of the car and running, and Person B moving over to sit in the drives seat.

This would be a great point if not for the heavily skewed application of this technique towards the police, as a sibling comment gives examples for.

It's purpose is to presume innocence, a tenet which seems to be rapidly fading from society.

Indeed, it presumes innocence of the police, a standard that is rarely applied to any other group, especially not protesters. That is precisely the problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com