...to loathe the use of the word "casualties"?

[SpeedyGonzalez]

Maybe a journo on MN can explain why nowadays reporters and writers so often say "casualties" when referring to people who have been killed in an accident, etc. It feels like such a throwaway term, which completely diminishes the humanity of the people concerned. And, practically speaking, "people" is shorter!

I also hate "lost their lives", as if to say "Whoops! Bit careless there, matey!"

I find it incredibly hypocritical. For years the buzz across the media has been all about personalisation, finding the human interest angle in any and every story. Just yesterday no less than three local news presenters were wittering on pointlessly about how the scant snowfall in their area had affected them. Yawn. And yet if 1000 people are killed on the other side of the world, suddenly the human interest angle isn't so important because they're only casualties who were careless enough to lose their lives.

Oh, and news is supposed to be objective, but it definitely isn't. Fwiw I've worked in telly for years so I have no axe to grind.

Hobbgoblin that is awful about your mother. Glad to hear she wasn't killed, how terrible.

SG, it was an awful time - just before I had my first baby nearly 11 years ago! This time 11 years ago actually, now I think about it. Anyway, I know how deeply offended she was by both the trivialisation (as she saw it) and also the inference that it was something she could have avoided. (She coudln't have).

Well - you just said it! "News is supposed to be objective".
That's all there is to say really - comparing styles may prove that it's become more "personal and emotive" BUT in that case have you not shot yourself in the foot??!! - sorry, not trying to be thick but I really don't get it!!
Anyway - I'm off to bed, cos I may or may not be embarking on an Arctic expedition going in to work tomorrow!!

Hobgoblin - sorry, didn't mean to ignore your story - horrible for your Mum!!

I don't have a problem with casualties.

I have a big problem with "collateral damage" and "friendly fire". It implies that these are less important, the same when talking about local civilians who are killed in conflicts.

I can't imagine how stressful that must've been, hobb. Glad your kids got to meet their grandma.

Mowiol - no, my point is that news isn't objective, and the style of reporting has changed dramatically. And that in that context, "casualties" seems anachronistic, even though I think it's a relatively recent development. Anyway, night-night and good luck heading through the Arctic tomorrow!

Tech, yes, those terms are truly hideous.

SpeedyGonzalez
You're completely right about news reports from the past - . Can you imagine a news report nowadays being so calm, informative and, at times, silent?

I also think casualties is fine.

If you say '10 people lost their lives', or '10 people were killed' it's not always the right thing to say. Saying 10 casualties clearly states that those people lost their lives as the result of the attack/event. It's a clear term, and I think it's correct.

It's horrible though.. people being reduced to a word like that.

My goodness! The silence! Unheard of in this day and age! Even the continuity announcer sounds nothing like today's Beeb voices, totally distant.

I do rather like the style of today, though sometimes it means you end up with lots of vivid pictures and News Lite.

The vivid pictures we see are vastly edited compared to some countries. Wathing Al Jazeera and a Russian news channel is harrowing, the show far more graphic detail than we do. As a side note, almost every day on the Russian channel there's a new mad serial killer or mass murderer on the loose!

I wonder whether they show more gore because they impose fewer or different controls on taste and decency. Here we show just as much gore but in the 'right' contexts - ie in post-watershed films it's considered ok, but not in post-watershed news. Seems an odd distinction in a way, because gore is gore. But I guess fictional gore is a bit less unpalatable than something you know has really happened.

I once watched music videos on an Afghan channel, where they showed pictures of people dancing but covered up the Women's bare flesh with a huge black bar. Different views of taste and decency, I suppose.

Yeah, no nudity but beheadings are ok.

Then again, we won't show beheadings but nudity and simulated sex are ok.

My goodness, they show beheadings? How awful. It's like over here, when people used to crowd around a 'good hanging'.

I agree with you about our hypocrisy regarding sex and nudity; we seem to think that the only acceptable values of taste and decency are our ones. But then, that's because we're broad-minded modern
Europeans, right?!