Jamie Jackson's Alleged Assault Reminds Us That Journalistic Language Is Allegedly Bullshit

I spent most of Wednesday in a newsroom writing headlines and copy for a video that apparently appeared to show a cop—the much-maligned Officer 266 of Fairfield LAC – slamming the handcuffed, hot-panted Mardi Gras reveller Jamie Jackson to the pavement and pinning him to the ground with a jackboot. Allegedly.

Frustrated by this insulated language, I asked a superior why we were persisting with these obstructive qualifications.

"Just to be on the safe side," he said. "The video speaks for itself."

Sure it does… but the safe side of what? It's one thing to cast aspersions, but why should news copy insinuate that the footage is in some way not real? It seems unlikely that the incident will be proven not to have happened at all. Unless there is some kind of low megapixel iMovie filter being used by seditious cop-hating gays to sully the reputation of the New South Wales Police, there is no reason not to call a spade a spade, rather than a supposed tool seemingly constructed from metal allegedly used for the purpose of shovelling what appears to be shit.

By my lights, there was no reason not to caption videos of the Jamie Jackson incident with something like this:

A video uploaded to YouTube late Monday night shows a police officer slamming a handcuffed young man to the ground during the Sydney Mardi Gras and placing his foot on the man's back.

That is a perfectly accurate description of what that video shows, based solely on the evidence available. The video does not provide any broader context to the event; accordingly, the writing doesn't seek to.

Of course, the real question arising from the Jackson incident is whether Officer 266 used excessive force, whether or not it was an act of brutality, and, more broadly, whether this apparent use of excessive force was motivated by homophobia. It's probably safe to guess that his actions were fuelled in part by a lust for power and violence… but this is now a matter for the police to investigate, and maybe a public court, should Jackson attempt to press charges.

Either way, we all know what we saw.

Let's pretend for a moment that we are naïve enough to believe that news reporting is a trade free of bias, spin, and hidden agendas. Let's ignore the, at best, symbiotic, often obsequious relationship journalists have with the Talent and pause to remember one thing: This is the age of the internet. The dominant medium is video. Source material is everywhere, and it's generally hard to dispute its authenticity because, digital trickery aside, the camera does not lie.

So why doesn't the language of journalism reflect this?

Laziness, cowardice, mediocrity, and a tendency to follow the pack are all good answers. I know from personal experience that genuinely descriptive writing is often subbed beyond recognition, to the detriment of accuracy, out of paranoia born from a misunderstanding of what actually constitutes slander. "Better play this one with a straight bat, mate…" The net result is that the news is boring, lacking in detail and the audience continues to be treated like a bunch of stupid cunts.

Perhaps much of this language is simply archaic; rooted in a time when the truth was broadcast or printed on broadsheets and far fewer people knew where information came from or what refinement processes it was subjected to before it hit the newsstands or went to air.

But probably not. The precepts laid down by George Orwell in his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" hold firm to this day—they're just being ignored by another generation of unimaginative, slick-haired city swine with no balls or brain cells. I doubt old George would be surprised.

Imagine a boot stomping on a human face.

The cops are claiming Officer 226 has already been found guilty by the public in a "trial by social media." If this is true, good. Better that people make judgements based on evidence of the eyes, rather than refried blather pumped out by sleep-deprived, alcoholic news producers working to the strictures of arcane editorial directives at the major networks.

Personally, I think the adumbrate language we use makes us poor unfortunates in the news business look like a bunch of flaming assholes. But even worse, it compromises accuracy and has the potential to further erode the media's role and power as The Fourth Estate, an ideal that is fading toward fable.

Who is going to dispute what happened in that video? A few people online have likened this Jackson Incident to the Rodney King beating, which might be offensive if it wasn't so ridiculous. That comparison is up there with ABC News presenter Jeremy Fernandez claiming that his racial vilification on a Sydney bus was his Rosa Parks Moment. Sorry Jez, but get the fuck out of here.

These are different times to those, and until it's proven that Officer 266 was committing some kind of unprovoked hate crime (another video filmed just prior to Jackson being smashed into the ground shows the youngster throwing punches at police), all we have is a few minutes of a dumb cop roughing up a wasted teenager.