Words matter. So these journalists refuse to call GOP election meddling an 'audit.'

[Eugene]

Related: Pa. Republicans started their ‘forensic investigation’ of the 2020 election. It’s still unclear what that means. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

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Source: Washington Post

Words matter. So these journalists refuse to call GOP election meddling an ‘audit.’

By Margaret Sullivan
Media columnist
September 14, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

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Acknowledging this power and being transparent about those choices is exactly what the Inquirer did the other day when it embedded within a news story a bit of explanatory text, under the headline: “Why We’re Not Calling It an Audit.”

In clear language, the paper explained that it’s because “there’s no indication” that this effort, which follows months of demands from Donald Trump alleging baselessly that the election was rigged, “would follow the best practices or the common understanding of an audit among nonpartisan experts.”

How so? The Inquirer noted that when it asked how the review would work, how ballots and election equipment would be secured, who would be involved, and so on, the leaders of this effort did not explain.

The Inquirer stated some reporting-based facts linked to the paper’s previous stories about them: That Joe Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes, that state and county audits affirmed that outcome, and that there is no evidence of any significant fraud.

“We think it is critical to speak plain truths about efforts to make it harder to vote and about efforts to sow doubts about the electoral process,” Dan Hirschhorn, senior politics editor at the Inquirer, told me. “These are not ‘he said/she said’ stories — there is clear, objective truth here.”

More plain truths from the Inquirer: In the story carrying this explainer box, the paper uses the term “forensic investigation” — which is what the GOP wants to call it — in quotation marks. A sub-headline makes it clear that this effort is “modeled off the months-long partisan review in Arizona,” widely regarded as irrevocably flawed and unnecessary to begin with, initiated by Republican lawmakers carrying water for Trump and placed in the hands of dubious private firms. (“Fraudit” may be a more accurate term.)

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/audit-pennsylvania-gop-inquirer-media/2021/09/13/660f0462-14b8-11ec-a5e5-ceecb895922f_story.html

Shared WaPo link: https://wapo.st/3EcDIDH

[Karadeniz]

1. I'm OK with fraudit. Using the word forensic gives it an aura of factuality. Or, since these

shenanigans are being pursued only by the gop, Republican or partisan review would be correct.