The Left’s ‘allegedly’ problem

The Left’s ‘allegedly’ problem
Image: MRCTV video screen grab

Despite its having four syllables, the word allegedly shouldn’t be that hard for liberals to grasp, but suddenly they seem unsure of when to use it and when not to.

An example of the problem occurred last Friday when CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta referred to Angel Moms as “parents of victims who were allegedly killed by undocumented immigrants.” (The utterance betrays another linguistic problem — the inability of liberals to distinguish between immigrants and non-immigrant aliens — but that’s grist for another post.) For now, the focus will be on Acosta’s incorrect use of allegedly. By the time a parent earns the unwanted distinction of being an “Angel Parent,” there is no longer any doubt that the child’s killer was an illegal alien. That notion is implicit in the definition of the term. Acosta’s implication of uncertainty about the killer’s immigration status is just an attempt to muddy the debate over the disposition of illegals as a whole.

Another instance where the adverb has been misused is in connection with the Jussie Smollett saga. As LU’s Ben Bowles noted in a post out yesterday, when the story of the attack was first reported, the qualifier allegedly was missing from accounts, which took it on faith that Smollett was telling the truth (or “his truth,” in the new liberal vernacular). One panelist on ABC’s “The View” went so far as to caution another against referring to the attack as “alleged,” as though doing so somehow elevates or dignifies a hate crime.

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Now that the trajectory of the police investigation has now shifted toward the increasing likelihood that Smollett orchestrated the entire incident, the media have begun using allegedly correctly. “Jussie Smollett Allegedly Paid ‘Empire’ Extras To Stage Attack, Cops Say,” reads a headline at The Daily Beast.

It would be nice if the news media just got back to reporting the news rather than shading it.

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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