A list of examples of denial by omission:
- Gedda (AP), September 16 2003, Message Unit 1
- White, February 7 2004, Message Unit 1
- Lasswell (TV Guide), April 12 2003, Message Unit 1
- Moran (MSNBC), June 10 2004, Message Unit 1
- Belt (LJW), April 11 2004, Message Unit 11
- Belt (LJW), April 11 2004, Message Unit 25
- Belt (LJW), July 12 2004, Message Unit 1
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Definition of
denial by omission
In this technique, the
text leaves a fact out of the story in a way that implies that the fact isn't true. If the fact is an event, it is left out of the story in a way that implies that it didn't happen.
Suppose someone shows you a picture of a group of schoolchildren standing on bleachers and says, "The children in the back row are eighth-graders." The clear implication is that the children in the other rows are not eighth-graders. If the truth was that all the children in the picture were eighth-graders, you would have been misled.
This rule does not apply in formal logic, but it very often does apply in English.
Denial by omission denies a fact by pointing right at its position and then not mentioning it. That is, the
text implicitly identifies the topic under discussion in such a way that a reader would have to assume that the missing fact would certainly have been mentioned if it were true. Often this is done by the discussion of other facts closely related to the missing fact, but in sharp contrast to it. For example, a text might cover an impassioned anti-smoking speech by a prominent citizen. If the text does not mention the fact that the speaker was actually smoking a huge cigar while giving the speech, the reader will naturally assume that s/he wasn't. Given the topic of the speech, it is not possible that if the speaker had been smoking a huge cigar, the text would have left this fact out. The missing fact is too closely related to topic and in too sharp a contrast to it to have been omitted if it had been true.
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patriotized history
