bad news

I find it incredibly depressing how the mainstream media always focus on bad news. Take the headline from a Guardian report dated 28 December 2019:

Now, let's look at the first paragraph of this report:

This year saw the highest number of mass killings on record, database records show, with 41 incidents claiming 211 lives in 2019 even as the overall US homicide rated dropped.

So, the overall homicide rate fell, but the number of mass killings rose. Why, then, does the news report focus on the latter and not on the former? Why not analyse some of the reasons for the overall reduction in the homicide rate, considering some of the cities where this is most evident and what policies have achieved this? Why does the report select one negative statistic and discuss that in length and largely ignore the overall positive trend?

Why are we told about an outbreak of Ebola in Eastern Congo but not told about how it is now being resolve? Why do we learn about a famine in Ethiopia but never hear that it is now over? Why are we constantly being told about bush fires in Australia, but none of the news sources will tell us when they have been controlled?

I find the sensationalist, unbalanced reporting of all media outlets really disturbing.

capitalism

I have recently been watching the BBC series Civilisation, produced and narrated by Kenneth Clark in 1969; and some of his pronunciation is quite surprising.

He has a raised /æ/ vowel (the TRAP vowel), and he also has a voiceless sound at the start of 'what' and 'which' (so 'which; and 'witch' would be distinguished); but both these are expected for an RP speaker of his generation.

However, some other words are more unexpected, and I wonder if they are idiosyncrasies of his pronunciation. For example, he pronounces 'capitalism' with stress on the second syllable: 'caPITalism', which sounds very strange. (Listen here).

I've just checked in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed., 2008, p. 123), and this variant is listed as one possibility, so maybe Kenneth Clark was not so idiosyncratic after all. But I've never heard it as 'caPITalism' before, and it took me a moment to understand it.

What did he say?

There is a fascinating example concerning speech perception arising from a speech by Boris Johnson during the current general election in the UK. According to the subtitle provided by Channel 4, he says:

I'm in favour of having people of colour coming to this country

But, did he really say that? In fact, he claims that he said:

I'm in favour of having people of talent coming to this country

Is that correct? You can listen to the extract here.