When the Language of Politics Becomes a Minefield - New York Times
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Doug Mills/The New York Times
IF you have not yet heard the term “alt-right,” you most likely are living in another orbit. It is the chosen name of an extremist fringe with white supremacy at its roots. It is also a label many consider dangerous because it sanitizes the movement’s racist core. And if the media uses the word, they think, then they’re part of the problem.
As the fire rages, The New York Times has become ground zero. Every time it uses the term — which it does frequently, given the alt-right’s ties to Donald Trump — letters pour in, social media ignites and the comments section overflows.
Reporters and editors have huddled in sometimes tense discussions about when the term should be applied — or even whether. But so far, there is no move among top editors to ban it. Instead, their thinking is: You can use the phrase in a story, but make sure you include a blunt explanation of its meaning.
To say this will be unsatisfying to many Times readers is probably a reckless understatement. I’ve received reams of emails and tweets from people complaining that The Times’s use of “alt-right” in its pages brings legitimacy to Trump’s inner circle. It “normalizes” his incoming administration, they claim, by sugarcoating the racist views of certain advisers.
Trump could not be easily normalized, even if the media had such a goal. But the country’s highly polarized electorate and its factious media environment are combining to produce a linguistic battle royale. And since some readers view the use of specific words as the sole measure of good journalism, there are times when the substance of the story is turned almost into a sideshow.
A case study arrived last week. Scott Shane, a veteran reporter, produced a significant investigative piece on Trump’s most controversial adviser, Stephen Bannon. Through rigorous reporting and revelatory details, a portrait of Bannon emerged that was fascinating, original, and yet not neatly characterized. The story didn’t call Bannon a racist, a demerit in the eyes of some readers. And the headline used the phrase “Combative Populist.” Another demerit.
Within minutes of publication, a tweetstorm erupted. From @BradSonneborn came this: “Populist as a euphemism for white supremacist is why the Times continues to fail its readers.” @BDanielleW photoshopped a new headline onto the story, replacing “Populist” Steve Bannon with “White Supremacist.” Another just wrote the word “Nazi” over and over and over.
Shane, a prominent investigative reporter who specializes in national security matters, says the response was the most emotional he’s received since covering waterboarding and other forms of torture during the George W. Bush administration. “I think what was particularly disappointing is that a lot of young, educated people saw a 4,500-word story and said ‘You didn’t use the right label,’ instead of reading the story and drawing their own conclusions,” he said.
Readers also complained to my office, some with passionate responses, like that of Paul Kingsley of Rochester. “Steve Bannon could accurately be referred to as a racist, a misogynist, or a xenophobe,” Kingsley wrote. “It is inaccurate to refer to him as a ‘populist.’ Inherent in the definition is to represent ‘ordinary people’; Bannon’s views are extreme and anything but ‘normal.’ The NYT referring to him thusly normalizes his views and does the majority of people, who would not claim his hateful rhetoric as their own, a disservice.”
Kingsley’s point is worthy of discussion, but I had a different reaction to the story. When I read it, I trusted my narrator more because he wrote without judgment or loaded terms. He let me judge. And he wasn’t afraid to use nuance when it was called for, which in this age is braver than flat-out proclaiming someone a racist.
The Times shouldn’t be adopting or rejecting the preferred term of the politically motivated, because words do matter. One side prefers “illegal immigrant” because that sounds like someone who should be rounded up. The other side likes “undocumented worker” because that suggests a bureaucratic problem in need of a fix. “Climate skeptics” suggests reasoned suspicion, “climate deniers” willful ignorance. “Pro-choice” connotes individual liberty, “pro-life” a moral imperative.
Politics and language have been riding in the same passenger car for decades. And The Times, like most news outlets, is well-practiced in negotiating the linguistic land mines.
But something is fundamentally different in the current media climate. Previous clashes, over immigration or abortion, were lively, but they were more contained. The use of a single word in a story rarely dominated public discussion, or a paper’s entire line of coverage. Now it can wash out any other discussion.
Many commenters are convinced that if The Times uses words like “populist,” or if it fails to call Trump a “liar” with sufficient frequency, the public will be duped into thinking he’s a legitimate occupant of the White House. As if that battle will be won over a dictionary.
Joseph Kahn, The Times’s managing editor, said reporters and editors were fully aware of the pressure readers are trying to apply. “Some readers want us to eliminate euphemisms that they think paper over reality,” he said. “Or they’re angry when we don’t color someone with a singular brush.”
“We’re not trying to normalize anyone,” Kahn said. “We’re applying a 360-degree view, to open doors to understanding.”
Last week, The Associated Press and The Guardian released guidelines for using the term “alt-right.” With some variation, they both chose not to ban its use, but to explain clearly what the term means. On Friday, The Times joined them, with a memo to the newsroom that flatly described “alt-right” as “a racist, far-right fringe movement that embraces an ideology of white nationalism and is anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist.” It said the term is appropriate to use — but not without defining it.
That seemed right to me. I applaud its unflinching definition of “alt-right,” and I support the theory behind allowing the term to stay. If you keep saying what “alt-right” is, you eventually dilute the movement’s attempt to sanitize its beliefs for wider consumption. I hope the editors will release their guidance publicly with an explanation of how they arrived at their thinking.
As for Times readers, I hope they will ask themselves what such a singular focus on labels actually achieves. Does it really push news organizations in a healthy direction? Most journalists, I think, find them constraining because they oversimplify ideas. They wash out the grays, which is usually where the truth lies.
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