“Whitewash”: journalist-speak for “I’m lazy”

08 January 2007 in Media by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

OK, own up. Who started calling Australia’s 5-0 cricket victory over England an Ashes “whitewash”? And why couldn’t anyone, anywhere, come up with another description?

Sure, my trusty _Macquarie Dictionary_ says “whitewash” can refer to “a defeat in which the loser fails to score”.

But even though there’s still _some_ editors employed in this country, virtually every news outlet parroted “whitewash”: SBS (where I first heard it, but I doubt they were first), ABC, Murdoch, NineMSN, _The Sydney Morning Herald_ and virtually every news outlet from Kenya to Korea.

Would you like me to buy you a thesaurus, you lazy bastards? Because if it were my _job_ to write the news, I’d be embarrassed to be so unimaginative!

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3 comments

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09 January 2007 at 6:56 am

Richard

Richard’s avatar

Oh come on, we all know that using a large vocabulary only confuses the viewers….

09 January 2007 at 7:37 am

Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian’s avatar

I know, Richard, I know… Maybe I _am_ a hopeless romantic after all.

09 January 2007 at 11:08 am

Richard

Richard’s avatar

I’d agree, apart from the ‘romantic’ bit.

OK, OK, I’m going….