Friday, May 9

No qualifier necessary


A tennis player is "accused of raping" a woman.

Throughout the article, the incident is mostly referred to as an alleged rape. Which it appears to be (an alleged rape, that is).

But. The headline and the lede both refer to "date-rape".

The body appears to acknowledge the reality: "date-rape" is, simply, rape. So why the qualifier in the headline and lede?