ByteOnBikesJul 18, 2024

A pediatric doctor on a bike died

https://slrpnk.net/post/11540942

A pediatric doctor on a bike died - SLRPNK

A pediatric doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was killed while riding her bike in Center City on Wednesday night. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/deadly-3-car-crash-rittenhouse-philadelphia/3915690/ [https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/deadly-3-car-crash-rittenhouse-philadelphia/3915690/] The original post on the Philadelphia subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1e5wkv0/insane_accident_on_18th_and_spruce/ [https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1e5wkv0/insane_accident_on_18th_and_spruce/]

Show threadapfelwoiSchoppenJul 18, 2024

A pediatric doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was killed while riding her bike in Center City on Wednesday night.

The use of passive voice in the first sentence does a lot of work shifting blame away from the driver and the car centric systems in an “objective” effort.

How about:

Cyclist Barbara Friedes died when a the driver of a car hit her in the bike lane.

Show threadPedestrianError  Jul 18, 2024
@apfelwoiSchoppen @ByteOnBikes Active voice would be, “A driver killed…”
Show threadPapaStevesy
They’re both active voice, they just have different verbs.
Jul 18, 2024 at 2:45pmWeb
Show threadapfelwoiSchoppenJul 18, 2024
Yep, high school grammar 101. It isn’t that journalists don’t know this, it is how they are trained. Shift obvious blame away from parties for objectivity of the status quo.
Show threadTempermentalAnomalyJul 18, 2024
“was killed” is passive.
Show threadPapaStevesyJul 18, 2024
Yes, we all agree on that fact. The discussion progressed to two different commentors’ active voice re-writes of the original sentence.
Show threadwhoreticultureJul 20, 2024

I would argue the first isn’t active voice

“died when a driver killed” seems passive to me. It’s more accurate, but still passive.