Breaking News: Editor Bans His Newspaper's Use of 'Allege'

SVN editor bans use of all forms of 'allege'

STAFF REPORT

STERLING – Abused, misused and otherwise disrespected, the word "allege" and its many forms were officially banned today from ever appearing again in publications of Sauk Valley Newspapers.

"Enough is enough," executive editor Larry Lough said as he cleaned up the milk and cereal that had just shot through his nose during breakfast early Tuesday. Lough's golden retriever, Sydney, helped with the cleanup.

The breakfast explosion reportedly occurred as Lough was reading a story on saukvalley.com about a shooting in Sterling last Friday. Police had released only a few details by Monday.

The online report, according to Lough, misused the word "alleged" in all three references.

• "Few details are being released about an alleged shooting at a Sterling home early Friday." The shooting is not alleged, Lough insisted. It is a reported fact that should be attributed to the hospital and the police.

• "Police are not releasing the name and age of the alleged victim at this time pending further investigation, according to the release." Being a victim is not a crime, Lough instructed. If the hospital and police say this guy was shot, what reason do we have to qualify that with "alleged"?

• "Police later went to the man’s house, which is located on the east end of town, where he was allegedly shot." It is not a crime to be shot, Lough pointed out. "Why are we raising doubts over the fact that he was shot?"

Lough this morning issued SVN Executive Editorial Order 43, banning further use of "allege" in its various forms.

"We will have to get by with simple attribution of information that we report," Lough said. "For the time being, we can stick in an occasional 'reportedly' when the attribution is clear.

"Besides, few newspapers use 'alleged' correctly," the editor added. "We will take this step to make sure we don't get it wrong again."

"Allege" joins a growing list of words that have been banned at SVN, including "residence" and "hopefully," when not used in direct quotations.

In a related action, Lough placed the word "incident" on probation for 6 months after seeing a page proof with the shooting story. For no apparent reason, that story referred to the shooting as an "incident" rather than just calling it a "shooting." The probationary status will be reviewed in May, pending further abuses, which could lead to a banning of the word.