Monday, December 12, 2011

Business Weekly Words Trash Union Pacific

The headline and first paragraph of a "news" story follow.

Headline: Union Pacific carves up the desert
First Paragraph of Story: More than four dozen tractors, bulldozers and other heavy machinery are ripping up desert shrub just west of the Santa Teresa Airport in southern New Mexico.

No, this isn’t some Sierra Club publication. The headline and paragraph come from a story in the current New Mexico Business Weekly. I found the story, part of it, online in the current edition. (www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque).

The story is about the site work being done on the new Union Pacific multi-modal facility near Santa Teresa. I think that is the topic. The story appears in the Premium Content section. Being unwilling to pay, I only saw the beginning.

“Carves up the desert?” Well, that’s bad, of course. For a business to “carve up the desert,” that’s bad, too. So business is bad. See where this goes... All in the choice of words.

With the words chosen, media people point the story. In this case, a business publication pointed the story in a manner that is anti-business. That's a sin.

How about: “Massive site preparation underway for Union Pacific project.”

You know, some words not laden with “business is bad” values.

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