The Media are Ruining Language

 

According to complaints, the media is ill. The dilusion that the English language is sick is a requiring one. Parents, teachers, the press, have all been blamed. But recently the media, television, radio and newspapers have been widely criticized as linguistic criminals. They are using two arguments:

Dirty fingernails fallacy: journalists use language sloppily

According to the 'dirty fingernails'fallacy, journalists do not pay sufficient attention to language details. This is not true. The fallacy is largely due to ignorance about how language changes.  Maybe that´s not a surpirse, seeing as the change has become clear only in the last thirty or so years. 

Garbage heap fallacy: journalism is junk writing. 

Writing for the press is a demanding skill. So this is a false belief. The public reads newspapers avidly because they are written in a way that attracts attention and then sustains it, which takes time and practice.