{"id":795,"date":"2003-10-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-06T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/?p=795"},"modified":"2003-10-06T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-10-06T14:00:00","slug":"the-wapo-ableis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2003\/10\/the-wapo-ableis\/","title":{"rendered":"The WaPo: Ableist, ageist rag"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just may drop the Post a note about this one:
\nPope Cites ‘New and Serious Difficulties’ With Anglicans<\/a> (WaPo, marketing questions)
\nThe article is worth looking at for the Holy Father’s words to the Archbishop of Canterbury, of course. But the line that rubbed me the wrong way was this one (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

The ailing pontiff slurred his words but otherwise appeared alert<\/b>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We all know, of course, that for years the WaPo stylebook has dictated that the word “pontiff” shall always be preceded by the word “ailing”, whatever the actual topic of the story might be. (“Conservative” is acceptable as an occasional substitute.)
\nBut the thing that angers me about this particular article is the callous assumption that of course the old guy is dozing off — and the callous and ignorant assumption that people who slur their speech do so out of a decreased level of consciousness. News flash, WaPo — it’s possible to be fully alert, fully engaged, and still speak unclearly. There are all kinds of people out there, with a wide range of speech disabilities, who might slur their words but are smarter and more alert than your reporter.
\nBut as usual, when it comes to covering the Pope, there’s only one story that the Washington Post and her media sisters are really interested in writing and only one that they ever actually write: the next conclave — with the subplot of the battle for the Soul of the Church between the smart progressives v. the troglodyte hard-line conservatives. No matter what<\/i> the actual story is, that’s the story they write. It just writes itself, doesn’t it?
\nOh, and memo to the WaPo — don’t start planning your conclave coverage just yet. Like many frail elders, the Holy Father is going to have good days and bad days, and a few bad days are not enough to start buying your tickets for Rome. Jeanetta<\/a> brings us this example.<\/a>
\nUPDATE:<\/b> Secret Agent Man fisks a ghoulish CNN story.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just may drop the Post a note about this one: Pope Cites ‘New and Serious Difficulties’ With Anglicans (WaPo, marketing questions) The article is worth looking at for the Holy Father’s words to the Archbishop of Canterbury, of course. But the line that rubbed me the wrong way was this one (emphasis added): The… Continue reading The WaPo: Ableist, ageist rag<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}