Keith Devens .com

Why not? They're people too you know...

They obviously don't think their lives count for anything, so why should the media?

The point is that usually when you talk about those killed you're interested in the number of innocents killed. Surely it would be distorting the picture if, say, 100 suicide bombers blew themselves up and only succeeded in killing 1 person -- you wouldn't say "101 killed in a bloody day of violence". The case of Iraq's election day wasn't that extreme, but AFAIK more than 1/5th of those killed were the suicide bombers themselves -- 9 out of 44 "killed".

you wouldn't say "101 killed in a bloody day of violence".

Er, yes, I would. You know why? Because 101 would have been killed. I wouldn't be inventing numbers or distorting the truth to admit that.

If you want to talk about how many victims there are, say "1 victim", or "1 person murdered". If you are talking about how many people are killed, then I assume you are talking about how many people are, you know, killed.

Even if you think that's stupid, consider the practicality. When people are reporting the number of deaths, how are they supposed to weed out who is and isn't guilty from preliminary information?

The news could report, "44 deaths, presumbably including an unknown number of perpetrators."

I wouldn't be inventing numbers or distorting the truth to admit that.

Yes, that would be literally true, but it'd be distorting the picture to not mention that only one of those killed was innocent. Consider that you wouldn't be interested in the number of suicides which took place, so why would you care about the number of suicide bombers? Or if a suicide cult decided to kill themselves, it would be distorting the picture to say "1000 people killed" without indicating that they killed themselves.

...presumbably including an unknown number of perpetrators.

Well, in this case the number of suicide bombers was known. If you say "44 killed", to me that indicates innocents unless you say "44 killed, including 9 suicide bombers". It's fine to say "101 killed", but if you leave out or de-emphasize the fact that 100 of them were killers, you're distorting the facts.

Yes, that would be literally true, but it'd be distorting the picture to not mention that only one of those killed was innocent.

No, it really wouldn't. Not unless you were expecting them to misuse the word "killed". I don't see how that's their fault unless they routinely misuse the word "killed" and didn't in this case.

Honestly, when I read "[x] people killed", I assume that they mean [x] people were killed. If you want to read more into it and complain that it's not true when you twist the meaning of words, well that's your perogative, but you won't convince many people with that logic.

Well, in this case the number of suicide bombers was known.

So in the normal case of not knowing, the number would include the perpetrators, and in this case, you want it not to. Now that would be misleading.

Ok, I'm not really sure what you're arguing with me on. Do you not think it's relevant that some of those listed as "killed" were the ones who did the killing?

Of course I think it's relevent. But I don't think it needs to be explicitly stated, because anybody with an ounce of sense would assume suicide bombers would be among those killed without it having to be pointed out to them!

If anything, I'd say that it would be misleading to state that a certain number of people were killed when the actual number is higher.