'Enviro-Nutball' Headlines from Michelle Malkin 19 years, 8 months ago by Martey Dodoo

Michelle Malkin complains about an article in the Arizona Daily Star entitled "Border agent fires at SUV as it tries to run him over." She had this to say:

The incident actually involved 12 illegal aliens with two vehicles trying to crash through the U.S.-Mexico border. Not only do the headline and story fail to mention the law-breakers who tried to mow down the U.S. Border Patrol officer, but the headline also manages to sneak in an enviro-nutball bias that attributes the near-killing of the agent to the evil SUV, rather than the out-of-control driver.

Now, as far as I know, it is relatively common in American media to attribute the actions of a person to their vehicle (one would think an eminent journalist such as Malkin would understand that). The purpose of a headline is to entice a potential reader to read an article (in this, it seems to fail). Reading an article about a person in a SUV trying to run someone over is more interesting than reading about a homicidal Smart Car driver. Furthermore, Malkin's comment suggests that she did not actually read the article. Here's the first sentence:

A U.S. Border Patrol agent opened fire on a vehicle Sunday near Douglas after the driver tried to run over him, officials said.

Obviously, by the term "the driver," the liberal reporter is attempting to conflate SUV ownership with illegal aliens, thus depriving true Americans of the joys of owning a gas-guzzling behemoth. In addition, if she had read the article, Malkin would have noticed that the SUV (a Ford Excursion) is only mentioned once in the article, as opposed to the four times that "the driver" appears. I would call that "a mention" of the criminals, but Malkin apparently would not.