I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy!

Clear, concise communication was in critical condition after a confrontation with a local newscaster last night.

First the reporter read this headline,

“A man drowned after a swim in a Boone County lake this afternoon.”

How ironic would that be, for the man to swim in a lake and then go drown somewhere else? The man more likely drowned while swimming in the lake, not after.

Okay, I suppose you could argue that the man had stopped swimming – if he had kept swimming, he wouldn’t have drowned. So, technically, yes, he drowned after swimming. I would have let the reporter get away with that if it hadn’t been for the other story he read the same way.

He reported that

“an elderly woman was killed after her car collided with another vehicle on route 53.”

Oh my god, what happened? Did the people in the other car get mad and shoot the old woman? Did the paramedics arrive and say, “Uh oh, looks like the old girl broke her leg; we’re gonna have to put her down.”?

It turns out that she died after the collision but was essentially killed by the collision, not killed after the collision.

Whoever wrote those stories made the reporter look stupid after he read them.