Sorry to be pedantic, but there is no passive voice in this sentence. I normally wouldn’t care, but you said “passive voice” twelve times in all caps so I just had to.
Grammatically it's called a gerund. In this context the problem is mainly that it's ambiguous. An "officer involved shooting" could refer to a police officer getting shot by someone else, even though everyone knows that really means a case of a cop shooting somebody, because its almost never the other way around.
And that's why people hate grammar nerds, because while it's pedantically correct, pointing it out does nothing but attempt to take away from the point that was already communicated clearly enough to be understood.
Pointing out it makes you better at identifying what is going on when and why. Saying "they write it to make the officer look good or neutral" is an opinion, "they write it using passive voice, which distances the officer from his actions" is a fact. And here, passive voice isn't employed, so you have made yourself that much easier to shoot down and ignore when criticizing the media. Carefully and correctly showing someone how they are being lied to is the only way to really get them to acknowledge that someone is controlling the narrative.
Sorry to be pedantic, but there is no passive voice in this sentence. I normally wouldn’t care, but you said “passive voice” twelve times in all caps so I just had to.
Again, I am sorry.
'officer-involved shooting' vs 'officer shoots'
Yeah, I know what OP was getting at, but the passive voice would involve phrasing akin to “a person was shot”
Is there a term for what kind of phrasing this is then? I would think passive voice describes it well.
Grammatically it's called a gerund. In this context the problem is mainly that it's ambiguous. An "officer involved shooting" could refer to a police officer getting shot by someone else, even though everyone knows that really means a case of a cop shooting somebody, because its almost never the other way around.
And that's why people hate grammar nerds, because while it's pedantically correct, pointing it out does nothing but attempt to take away from the point that was already communicated clearly enough to be understood.
actually, people like me and think I'm cool
Pointing out it makes you better at identifying what is going on when and why. Saying "they write it to make the officer look good or neutral" is an opinion, "they write it using passive voice, which distances the officer from his actions" is a fact. And here, passive voice isn't employed, so you have made yourself that much easier to shoot down and ignore when criticizing the media. Carefully and correctly showing someone how they are being lied to is the only way to really get them to acknowledge that someone is controlling the narrative.
If someone's support hinges on something being grammatically correct, I think I can rightfully dismiss them.
I get your point, but your example is bad.
We are not in a position to dismiss any support.