Of all the Come on, man moments from a clueless media industry, this has to be the Come on, maniest. The same newspaper that has contributed most to a Speech Police climate now complains that the Speech Police are under new management.
That’s not to say that the New York Times editorial board doesn’t raise a couple of arguable points. But they are the worst-positioned institution to make them — or at least second-worst:
In the distorted view of the Trump administration, protecting free speech requires controlling free speech — banning words, phrases and ideas that challenge or complicate a government-favored speech. Officials in Washington have spent the past month stripping federal websites of any hint of undesirable words and thoughts, disciplining news organizations that refuse to parrot the president’s language and threatening to punish those who have voiced criticism of investigations and prosecutions.
The Orwellian nature of this approach is deliberate and dangerous. This posture is not about protecting free speech. It is about prioritizing far-right ideology — and at times celebrating lies and hate speech under the guise of preventing the criminalization of language — while trying to silence independent thought, inconvenient truths and voices of dissent.
Let me address that — but first, a word from our sponsor:
Now … what was it that the NYT editors were saying about “language police” again? And “Orwellian” manipulation?
And that’s only one point of hypocrisy to explore. The editorial board goes on at length to defend the Associated Press over its dispute with the White House, without once mentioning that the AP acts every inch like a Language Police itself:
When Mr. Trump announced that he was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, for example, it seemed to be an essentially harmless bit of nationalistic chest-puffery, paling in comparison with the real damage he intended to do to national security, public health, the Civil Service and the rule of law. But then he made it clear that compliance was mandatory.
This month, a reporter for The Associated Press showed up at an Oval Office event and was barred from entering because the news organization continued referring to the gulf by the internationally recognized name it has had since at least the 16th century. That was an editorial decision that The A.P., just like The Times and many other outlets, has every right to make on its own without government interference.
Who’s interfering? The AP is still able to apply its own rules, write what it wants, and publish it as it sees fit. The White House has the ability to choose which news orgs with which to engage, too. The First Amendment does not guarantee people a seat in the Briefing Room or on Air Force One. If the AP wants to call the Gulf of America the Gulf of Mexico (or vice versa), that’s still their decision.
That’s more leeway than the AP allows its own customers. The above example reminds us of how the AP Style Guide works in practice: as a statute system for language policing. Poynter Institute cheered that impact last year when they argued that enforcing changed terminology would “hold cops accountable,” thanks to “data-rich narratives,” or something. Their argument was that the AP could use its cartel power to force all of the other news orgs to adopt their ever-changing nomenclature and punish those who don’t with non-republication. Poynter saw this as a virtue, of course.
Matt Taibbi scoffed at the issue as well, noting that the White House is treating the AP like the AP has treated conservatives, and … pretty much everyone else:
Maybe it makes sense not to use anchor babies, but “children who are born to noncitizen parents wanting to take advantage of birthright citizenship” is equally non-descriptive. You may use illegal immigration but not illegal immigrant and formerly acceptable terms like undocumented now give way to immigrants lacking permanent legal status, with a possible future nod toward European usages like irregular migration (but don’t use irregular migrants!).
As anyone who’s read Hate Inc. can attest I’ve long been critical of once-common newspaper practices like plastering mugshots online. These linger and the acquitted tend not to live them down, and in many cases coverage is just unnecessary (broke moms busted for shoplifting, pictured and named?). But AP’s now-gigantic Stylebook goes beyond better practice and asks reporters to abandon common sense or speed for constantly shifting political precepts. Hence, no references to “both, either, or opposite sex” because “not all people fall under one of two categories for sex or gender.” These are journalists, not scientists, telling people how many sexes there are.
That’s how we get everyone from ABC to Fox to every local newspaper describing someone with five o’clock shadow and an Adam’s apple as a “woman” in a news article about a biological male domestic terrorist. The AP is language-policing to enforce unreality. They don’t have much room to complain that the White House is hoisting them by their own petard, and neither do its major constituent orgs like the NY Times.
With that being said, the editors do raise a good question about composition of pool coverage of presidents, especially the traveling pool. Megyn Kelly raised the same point yesterday, which I included in the Final Word. Events from the White House generally have large numbers of press on hand that can then provide coverage from a broad range of perspectives, but coverage is a lot more limited when presidents go elsewhere. Some places have very limited space and the pool can be very small, which means that those who choose the poolers can and often do essentially choose the tone of the coverage. Kelly argued yesterday that we shouldn’t want politicians hand-picking their poolers if we also claim to want full transparency over their words and actions.
That’s a discussion worth having, and a discussion that actually has a rational basis for a discussion. But shrieking over the First Amendment because of a nomenclature dispute does nothing for anyone’s credibility, let alone when it comes from those who have spent decades being the Language Police in media and culture.
