Local television news

I hate it.

This evening I was subjected to two glaring solecisms within the first five minutes of a newscast.

First, I was told that an attempted assault occured today in Austin. The at-large "suspect" is described as 5'7" tall, etc. What infectious cretinism impels today's journalists to apply the term "suspect" to every anonymous criminal? The concept is not at all difficult. One who commits a crime is a criminal; one who is suspected of committing a crime is a suspect. One would never call up the police to say, "Help! A suspect just tried to rob me!" Unless one were a local news employee. Or an idiot.

Second, I heard a brief story about the proposed federal marriage amendment. The local angle to the story was an opposition protest at the state capitol here. Our anchorbeing finished the report by saying that "gay rights groups call the amendment illegal." Since when can a provision of the Constitution of the United States be illegal? Perhaps our intrepid reporter misheard the demonstrators, or perhaps some of the demonstrators really did say such a thing. Either way, I am sure that the demonstrators had other things to say that were not quite as absurd. If they did not, the journalist should have laughed at them and wandered off to report on gasoline prices.