Press-speak

Will someone please send the media hacks back to school to learn some basic English grammar?

Why do they feel that they have to read the news in either the present tense or a 'future predictive' tense?

Phrases like "A man is arrested for..." No he IS NOT. He WAS arrested. It happened in the past, it is not a continuous event. It only happened once, it is not still happening, so please select one of the correct tenses on offer. Personally, I would choose either the present imperfect (has been arrested) or the past simple (was arrested).

Then there's this lovely new 'future predictive' tense which the hacks have invented to get round press embargoes: "the Minister is expected to announce that..." or "he will say that..."

They know damn well what the announcement will say because they've been sat on it for hours but not able to report it because of the time restriction, so they tell people what is expected instead, thinking that they're clever. They're not. They're just irritating.

Our language has become, to paraphrase John Humphrys, 'mangled and manipulated'. It's no wonder that the standards of literacy have dropped in the UK, if the mass media can't even be bothered to get it right.

Pedants Unite!