By dead horse ... you meant political correctness? No, unfortunately it is not dead yet. These social phenomena tend to linger for fairly long time. But life is a great equaliser ... and within a generation or two, it usually corrects such silly anomalies. Too bad, that it causes lots of conflict and hardship though ....  

Otherwise Well, there is a clear difference between reading and understanding the news. You might might be proficient in the first, but I have serious doubt about the second. :))