(Image Source: Mirror)
BY EMOKE BEBIAK
ANCHOR JIM FLINK
You're watching multisource US video news analysis from Newsy.
Reporter: “To make killing Obama their number one priority” (Global News)
Reporter: “Telling the nation and the world that President Obama is in fact dead...” (WNYW)
Glen Beck: “Hey, yeah, let’s kill Obama is all that... I mean Bin Laden is that tough of a call.” (Fox News)
Now, who is the dead terrorist? Osama or Obama? Since the the death of Osama Bin Laden, the media are full of slip-ups confusing the President of the United States with the world’s most-wanted -- and now dead -- terrorist. ABC News says the gaffes are mostly innocent but also telling about the culture...
“In each case, it appears, the slip was unintentional and quickly corrected. But the latest rhetorical blunders offer a reminder of how the leader of the Free World and the world's most wanted man have been wrongly conflated in the past -- and how the media-saturated American culture can't get enough of it.”
A blogger for the Wall Street Journal says mistakes happen, but confusing the two names might reflect badly on the news outlet...
“But it in this case, and especially when newscasters make the error, viewers are highly likely to read something into it–political bias? racial bias? all-purpose incompetence?”
But a professor of communicative sciences and disorders tells Salon.com our brains are to blame for the frequent slip-up:
“There is physiological accounting for this. In a process known as assimilation ... we anticipate the ‘B’ from ‘bin Laden’ and this influences the ‘s’ in ‘Osama’ to turn into a ‘b’ (‘Obama’). ‘And 'b' is a much less complex sound to form than 's.'"
That explains the mix-ups on camera, but how about misspelling Osama’s name in writing? A blogger for The LAist writes it all comes down to the lack of proofreading...
“Okay. We know things get a little hectic in the newsroom, and we admit, we make mistakes, too... Times are tough in news media, but there should be more than a couple of pairs of eyes responsible for the content online and on air...”
The BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey makes fun of the slip-ups advocating for an early start in learning the difference.
“Obama. Not to be confused with Osama. Obama. Osama. Very different people, with very different ideas.”
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Transcript by Newsy.
