AP style guide might make official distinction between crisis foraging & "looting" if we push them

[zazen]

The mainstream media are capable of changing their terminology across the board, when they want to. At least when I was taking journalism classes at Carolina 100 years ago, there was this thing called the AP style guide that subtly shaped thought, however much journalists believed they were being "objective."

Remember how the MSM were just silly in the way they spent hours discussing the right way to pronounce "harrass" during the Anita Hill hearings? And then made a big industry wide change to be sure everyone was uniform in how they said it?

And they seemed to change, overnight, the term robbery to "home invasion."

These are just a few examples.

I wish HuffPost or someone with some pull would start a blogosphere movement to at the very least have them change their terminology about foraging food in a disaster to stay alive vs. breaking into stores to sell TV sets, as one DU'er put so well this morning. I seriously doubt anyone is doing the latter, but if so, _that_ would be called looting. Pulling old food out of a crushed grocery store to keep your children alive isn't looting--its "crisis foraging," or something like that.

Hell, even "sustenance looting" would be better than just looting.

[virgogal]

1. Used cars are now "previously owned". Stupid,stupid,stupid.

[muffin1]

2. Something needs to change.

They are made to sound like criminals for trying to live. I remember after Katrina, there was a picture in the news that showed two black people, slogging through the flood waters with food and supplies. The caption said they were "looters". There was another photograph showing two white people doing the same thing, and the caption said they had "found food".

Hmmm...

[truedelphi]

3. That is one reason why I limit TV viewing even during events like

This catastrophe.

The San Francisco Chronicle did a piece during Katrina - interviewing four people who had been tourists in N.O. during the days of the high water flooding.

Only one refused to admit that they "stole," or "looted" some store or vending machine to survive.

Everyone else cheerfully admitted it. Even the really "high end" tourist.

A lot of viewers think, in a naive way, "Well in a crisis like that, I'd still have my credit card with its maximum $ 2,000 limit. So if I did go into a store where there were no cashiers, I would still run my card through the system and charge myself for what I took."

Really? Even when the power is down?

[zazen]

4. thanks for recs: maybe larger outlet will pick up this easy fix if it makes it to Greatest Page

It really wouldn't be that hard for the committee that approves AP style to discuss it and make a change.

God forbid we have another catastrophe of this magnitude, but the world will, somewhere (hopefully later than sooner), and at least then a change in terminology will help improve cultural misperceptions a little bit.

[zazen]

5. actually, any recommended terms? we could set up poll and then Twitter this

Survival looting
Survival foraging
Crisis foraging
Sustenance looting
Catastrophe looting

I'm sure y'all can come up with something better.

[bergie321]

9. Assisting in the distribution pipeline

[riverwalker]

6. distribution

it's not "looting", it's distribution. The term "looting" is not even correct at this stage in a catastrophe. It's like someone taking a garden hose to put out a neighbors fire, it would not be called "looting", you would not say he "looted" a garden hose.
They are distributing survival supplies. Any journalist who uses the term "looting" needs a dictionary.

[inna]

7. +1.

agreed, and i like your reading.

[zazen]

8. individuals going in to find food for their families are "distributing" it?

If you think I'm advocating the looting concept, I'm not--I'm just trying to be realistic about building on and then hijacking images people currently have that are associated with certain terms and turning it to our purpose.

But I'm thick--are you saying if one person goes in to a grocery store and takes food out for themselves in this situation, that they're "distributing" it to themselves?

Heard the CNN reporter use the term looting a few minutes before I began this thread, unfortunately.

On edit: You'd say, then, that reporters should say that the people are self-distributing all available food and supplies. If that's what you mean, I think I get it. I'm just concerned it'd get confused with formal distribution lines, which is hugely different and presumably reflective of less suffering and desperation than what happens when you have to rummage through shaky buildings to find anything to eat.