Letter to the Editor at The Irish Times, The European Media & the Cologne Attacks

12 January 2016

Letter to the Editor

The Irish Times

lettersed@irishtimes.com
lettersed@irish-times.ie

Dear Letters Editor,

Your Germany correspondent, Derek Scally, wrote:

The [Frankfurt newspaper’s] long piece detailed the chaos of the night [of the Cologne attack] and interviewed a 17-year-old woman who said she and her friends were surrounded by at least 30 men near the central station, who robbed their bags and valuables before groping them.

“I had fingers at every orifice,” said the young woman.[1]

Scally’s bizarre use of “groping” is close to the worst imaginable example of PC disinformation from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. “Groping” is a word better reserved for the awkward and/or unwanted advances of an adolescent teenager in regard to someone roughly his or her own age. Here, instead, we have (if Scally’s sources are to be believed) 30 adult men who organized a premeditated attack on a child—not a “young woman” as Scally mischaracterizes her—a child—a person under 18. (18 is the age of majority in most of Europe, including Germany.) This child was not “groped”—I had fingers at every orifice—she was the victim of sexual assault, rape, and attempted rape by multiple perpetrators. Again, groping generally refers to wanted or unwanted touching or fondling. The victim here did not describe “groping;” she described something far more serious: sexual assault and rape.

If Scally knows the difference between groping and raping, then his usage here publicly victimized the victim a second time, and he also misinformed all his Irish Times readers. On the other hand, if Scally’s command of standard English usage is so poor to the extent that he really does not know the difference, then he should open his eyes, mind, and heart, and speak to his mother, sister, or daughter—someone—anyone—or, he could just buy a standard college-level English dictionary. But either way, whether Scally knows the difference or not, The Irish Times has lost my trust.

Scally assures the reader that the elite German and international mainstream media did not cover-up the Cologne attacks. Who could possibly believe a messenger such as this?

Sincerely,

Seth Barrett Tillman

Seth Barrett Tillman, Submitted as a Letter to the Editor at The Irish Times, The European Media & the Cologne Attacks, New Reform Club (Jan. 12, 2016, 9:25 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2016/01/from-you-cant-make-it-up-collection.html>; 

PS: Dear New Reform Club readers, feel free to let The Irish Times know what you think. Email: lettersed@irishtimes.com & lettersed@irish-times.ie 

PPS: Welcome Instapundit and Chicago Boyz readers. Please have a look around this site -- The New Reform Club -- my cobloggers write interesting stuff. 

My prior post is here: Seth Barrett Tillman, Ranking Legal Authors (not just academics): HeinOnline’s “ScholarRank’s Top 250 Authors,” The New Reform Club (Jan. 11, 2016, 2:09 PM).

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethBTillman  ( @SethBTillman )

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[1] Derek Scally, ‘Claim of media cover-up on Cologne sex attacks is nonsense’ The Irish Times, 11 January 2016 <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/claim-of-media-cover-up-on-cologne-sex-attacks-is-nonsense-1.2492574> accessed 12 January 2016, at 1:39 PM.