How the media uses "softening" to push its propaganda

When I refer to "softening" it has nothing to do with stool samples, though the media reports have become a bunch of crap... What is does have to do is an organized effort of theirs to soften the words it uses to push an agenda. Examples are these:

"Terrorists" became "insurgents" in the Iraq war.
"Minimum wage" became "living wage".
"Illegal aliens" became "undocumented workers".

There are many other examples, but these are a couple that come to mind from recent news events. Now why would someone do this? In my elementary school civics class, we talked about propaganda and how governments use it to sway public opinion, hopefully in such a way that nobody notices the subtle influence.

One of the early examples from my childhood was that "Everyone is doing it." It was quickly pointed out that, indeed, not EVERYONE was doing it. But it's an easy cop on a one way broadcast or printed article to say that "everyone is against the war in Iraq," when there is no way to challenge that statement except a letter to the editor which would be published long after the original article were forgotten.

My point is this; that every day our language is being changed by people with an agenda. Take the word "dialog". How often in the past 6 months have you heard the new un-word "dialoging"? We talk, we don't dialog. But suddenly there is a need to dialog with our enemies. We need to begin a dialog with Hugo Chavez so we can understand him better. As Doctor Evil would say, "Right....."

People that come into our country illegally are illegal. Any wage that is set as the lowest common denominator by the government is the minimum. And terrorists in Iraq are coming from Iran and are NOT insurgents! Get it?

Mick O.