Someone decides to risk their life to bring down a major drug cartel... so what do you call them?
Hero? Man of conscience and courage? Or informant, if you do not want to make a value judgement?
Cali drug cartel's betrayer tells his story
He used to be Jorge Salcedo, and he helped authorities bring down the cocaine kingpins of Colombia.
Now, granted, in the story it is said that the cartel rightly felt it was a personal betray of them.
"It was very risky, but I was trapped in a nightmare, in a totally corrupt environment. I had to escape," he explained.
Federal prosecutor Edward R. Ryan called the defection a shock and "a very personal betrayal" to the Cali bosses, leaving the man marked for death. He is still "No. 1 to be killed," Ryan said.
The man has lost much of what he once took for granted: his home, his country, his name, even his past.
But why would the Times headline writer label him as a 'betrayer - when the writer could have used so many other words with no pejorative connotations? Why label Salcedo as a 'betrayer' in the headline when the article makes it very obvious - he is a hero.
Ryan, the federal prosecutor, in a recent interview called Salcedo one of the country's "least-known heroes," one of the people most responsible "for bringing down the most powerful criminals in the world."
Clearly, the writer of this article would not feel the proper term to describe Salcedo was... betrayer.
When I moved to LA in 94, the LA Times seemed like a top-flight paper, a must-read, although even then their home delivery was awful. I quit the ssubscription around 2000, opting to read the web version. Today, I don't even look at the web site, I find more of interest in the Burbank Leader. The Times journalism has fallen to a point where they just don't matter. IF Tirbune sells it to a local and IF that local owner made it a relevent LOCAL paper, I might start reading the website AFTER they made it read like a newspaper (see Nytimes.com). Eat it, Tribune.
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