Where you place “alleged” matters

When listening or reading news organizations report on crimes I do often cringe at where they insert “alleged”.

Here’s an example from a https://www.wired.com/story/pager-explosion-hezbollah/ Wired article:

“depicted in alleged videos of the blasts”

So, the videos were alleged?

And in this case, even if the author edited the line to read:

“Depicted in videos of the alleged blasts”

This is a little bit better. But are the blasts alleged?

I think the misuse of the word “alleged” contributes to a sense of unknowable truth. We can know the video is real. We can know the blasts actually occurred. We understand that the use of “alleged” is there simply to preserve the legal concept of “innocent until proven guilty”.

So let’s be mindful of where we place the word. In the case of this article, no one has yet been charged with a crime. Based on speculation, the author could have said, “alleged to have been committed by Israel.” But otherwise, there’s no reason to cast doubt on the reporting of facts by qualifying them with “alleged”.

Here’s another one from Wired…

“they allegedly found more pipe bombs”

The overuse and misplacement of “allegedly” makes legitimate news articles sound fake. Imagine how differently this would impact you if it read…

“they found more alleged pipe bombs”

In this reading we are not lead to mistrust the word of the police. We are simply lead to acknowledge that upon finding these parts, haven’t completed due diligence to confirm that they are indeed bombs.