Daily Mail Journalist Tried to Mock a Teen Girl for Her Thoughtful Words About Elizabeth Warren & It, Like, Did Not Go Well for Him

David Martosko, a “journalist”—as much as you call someone a journalist when they write for the Daily Mail—and grown-ass adult man, recently tweeted out a quote from a young woman he interviewed at an Elizabeth Warren rally. He made sure to state that it was her “verbatim” answer to a question about Donald Trump’s repeated use of the derogatory nickname “Pocahontas” for Warren. Martosko was clearly trying to shame this girl with the “verbatim” qualifier since he left in every filler word she used in her response.

This is, simply, a dick move. Anyone being interviewed is going to slip into some uhs and ums. No matter how much media training a person has, or how many times they’ve given variations of the same stock answer in different interviews—this is just how we all speak. Fillers get edited out of interviews because leaving them in is pointless, distracting, and, again, just plain mean, as it comes across as a deliberate attempt to make your subject sound less intelligent than the substance of their quotes would suggest.

Even professional interviewees—celebrities and politicians—use these filler words that journalists have to edit out. To leave them in in a response from a teenager who was asked a spontaneous question by a strange man is transparently and absurdly biased and cruel.

As he was no doubt chuckling to himself over how completely owned this 17-year-old was, Martosko clearly failed to listen past the ums and likes, because her actual answer was spot-on. Her answer was insightful and she was clearly choosing her words very thoughtfully. So of course she’s going to use fillers, which are basically verbalizations of the thought process.

I wonder if Martosko includes all of Donald Trump’s ramblings when he writes up those speeches. (Just kidding, I don’t wonder. I checked and of course he doesn’t.)

(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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