JOURNALISTICALLY CRIMINAL

Found the link to the Chicago Tribune's editor's piece on that nasty "T" word thanks to Jeff Jarvis, who calls the refusal to use the word not just intellectually dishonest but "journalistically criminal."

What's odd about the Trib's decision-making is that they coupled the weasel-wording with the choice, apparently, to prominently display one of the more powerful images right on the front page (a choice they also took heat for.) That's generally a choice you associate with outlets wanting to emphasize the threat and the danger of terrorism, not downplay it, the attitude you associate with weasel-wording.

But look at his response to the charge of being sensationalistic.

But by comparison with those pictures, the photograph that the Tribune ran was a Pieta. Not only was it decorous and respectful; it was a work of art.

"It wasn't the dead bodies that made the picture," said Jonathan Elderfield, the picture editor who handled the Russia story Friday for the photo desk. "It was the emotion."

He was referring to the actions of the three adults in the photo--and especially of the woman, clad in a black dress and stooped to the ground at the head of one of the stretchers that bore the children's bodies. Her right arm is extended and her right hand rests lightly upon the forehead of a little girl whose body, except for the head, is shrouded in a white sheet. The woman's other hand is at her own throat--the better to squelch her own sobs, perhaps?

But it is her face, drawn and filled with an unutterable sadness, that draws the viewer's attention. If you were indifferent to this story before, if Beslan, Russia, might as well have been on the far side of the moon, you could not fail to care and to empathize after seeing that woman's--that mother's--grief-stricken face

Jeff Jarvis calls that "sickness." I think it's purely a sense of voyeurism, of exploitation. The images aren't being shown to raise an alarm, but for their ability to evoke an emotion. (Isn't that why art is valued?)

Indeed, here is what he says about one of the discarded choices:

Another was that a difference of a second or two between two photos can be the difference between art and afterthought. Another picture, with the same cast of characters as the one that ran Saturday, shows the three adults in ever-so-slightly different positions. Most important, the woman in black is not looking tenderly at her child's face, but away from it. It was a nice snapshot, but it had none of the evocative power of the photo that made the paper. (My emph.)

But the defense of the policy of avoiding the use of the word terrorism is truly nothing short of Orwellian.

Our eschewal of the word "terrorist" was in keeping with a stylebook policy adopted several years ago, a policy that is in keeping with the journalistic purpose of the news pages: to provide as complete, thorough and unbiased an account as possible of the important news of the day.

No intellectually honest person can deny that "terrorist" is a word freighted with negative judgment and bias. So we sought terms that carried no such judgment.

At the same time, our news stories--and photos--have not stinted on detail about what the hostage-takers did, to whom they did it and what the deadly results have been. No intellectually honest person can contend he or she was denied the information necessary to figure out what name the hostage-takers might deserve.

To borrow a currently fashionable phrase: We report, you decide.

In other words, you know they're terrorists, and we know they're terrorists. But we aren't going to come right out and call them terrorists because that's a bad, bad word, and we don't call people bad, bad words, even if they're bad, bad people because they've engaged in the behavior that matches the technical definition of this word. If we admitted these people had performed this act, it might bias you against them. Even though, technically speaking, they would at that point deserve it.

In other words we are banishing bad, bad words from our vocabulary, although we surely do encourage you to use them at home, since otherwise they might disappear from the language and all.

And they say Universities are bastions of political correctness. We at least teach our students to use language with precision, not to try and exile words. I mean, I find this explanation just frightening.

Comments

[Athena]

Amen, except to the last two sentences.

You do Dauber, but not a lot of them!

[Athena]

But, the "T-word", that just makes me laugh because that's what we say here instead of "terrorism" on the street so no Arabs overhear us.

We frequent say "the T word" in cabs as well.

[Ron Hardin]

> I think it's purely a sense of voyeurism, of exploitation. The images aren't being shown to raise an alarm, but for their ability to evoke an emotion. (Isn't that why art is valued?)

No, art isn't for emotion; that's some bogus split of the world into reason and emotion. Neither one actually exists, which is bad news for the split. They're both parts of retroactive accounts of what went on, not part of what went on.

I don't think it's voyeurism either; it's just relating to others, evoking what inclines you to offer help or sympathy. Without your having to do it! It's parasitic on a strength.

What it is is entertainment. Once you spot the trick, you simply decline to be entertained in that way, and drop out of their audience.