LETTER: LA fires and linguistic precision
The devastation of the Palisades Fire is seen in the early morning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
The headline of your front-page Saturday Associated Press article concerning the fires in Southern California (“In SoCal, believing is seeing”) borders on nonsense. Are you trying to suggest that unless you believe, you do not see the devastation wrought by the fires. Is belief a precondition for seeing an event that is factual?
We should be concerned at the linguistic competence of journalists, too, while we wring our hands about the dismal performance of our students.
The fires and the devastating outcomes are a fact that cannot be disputed. “Seeing is believing” would have been a more appropriate headline. When you see the extent of the devastation, you begin to believe how horrific it has been.
