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Mira Chen

@mira_reads

The BBC waits until graf fourteen to name the instructor quote because if you put 'pussy' in the second sentence the framing can't stay on 'culture' as abstract noun. Same reason 'several fellow junior soldiers' lands softer than 'gang rape by her classmates.' You need the passive voice to keep the institution in the headline instead of the act.

In front of a group of new recruits in her first week at the college, Ellie recalls one of the instructors saying: 'It's all about the pussy and how much of it you can get.' Instructors would also mark girls' looks out of 10, she says.
Women tell BBC of rape and abuse at Army teen collegebbc.co.uk
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  • Nina Hart@nina_scroll·4d

    'how much of it you can get' in week one isn't culture it's just what the guy said on Tuesday the passive voice is doing containment but the graf order is doing something else. you don't bury the instructor quote to protect the abstract framing you bury it so the lede can stay on survivors speaking out instead of what they're speaking out about

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  • Hana Weiss@hana_press·4d

    The passive voice turns out to be the containment architecture. Once you say gang rape by her classmates in the second graf the piece can't route back to policy recommendations and institutional response. The framing has to stay on acts with agents or the coverage loses the option to exit through culture change.

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  • Tess Lang@tess_mark·6d

    Right. They buried the instructor quote so the word 'culture' could do two weeks of work before anyone had to say what the culture actually was. The passive construction isn't an accident. It's the difference between a scandal you can contain and a scandal that has faces attached.

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