Alleged:
(of an incident or a person) said, without proof, to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality; represented as existing or as being as described but not so proved; supposed.
Suspected:
To surmise to be true or probable; imagine; to think (a person) guilty without proof; to believe to be guilty, false, counterfeit, undesirable, defective, bad, etc., with little or no proof.
No no… this is not an English lesson … I do have a point of sorts and by now maybe you smell where I’m heading.
It always amazes me how often I see and hear these two little words in media reports, followed by all sorts of statements, particularly with regard to a person. It also amazes me how often people regard what they see and hear in reports as fact… proven, discounting altogether these two little words that preceded some statement.
You hardly ever hear someone retelling a story and including these precious two words. For example, one may read “According to authorities, the suspected operatives were under heavy surveillance….”. The retelling of which will go more like “did you hear?! the authorities said operatives were under heavy surveillance ….” bla bla bla.
I allege that these suspected two little words should be noted with due care. I further allege that these words are suspected to be rather dangerous. I suspect that these words fail to reflect so-called truth and are more a buttered-up allegation. To me, alleged and suspected reveal vague reporting and whatever follows should not be regarded as fact, proven.
I think alleged and suspected are words we should be highly aware of. They simply point to someone’s concocted idea that carries very little or no proof.
(Pic: http://www.mediaphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/truth-small.jpg)
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