Ambiguous language in journalism: Monkey Pox and Camel Privates

Amazing lead:

A veterinarian prescribed antibiotics Monday for a camel that lives behind an Iberville Parish truck stop after a Florida woman told law officers she bit the 600-pound animal’s genitalia after it sat on her when she and her husband entered its enclosure to retrieve their deaf dog. —Yousssef Rddad, The Advocate

Note that this lead emphasizes the news — the most recent detail is the fact that the biting victim has received treatment for an incident that occurred earlier. Because journalism emphasizes recent events, this lead properly emphasizes the treatment that followed the incident, but in this long sentence (“It just keeps on giving,” said the colleague who brought this to my attention) we waste no time with who did what, in what context, and how the reporter knows these details (via what the Florida woman told police).

Post was last modified on %s = human-readable time difference 11:28 am

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Dennis G. Jerz

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