Words: When do we cross the line?

Editor's Notes

Words can be such delicate matters.

Just in the last few weeks, a handful of words that we've used in the paper have come under fire. They've offended some newspaper readers. They've also sparked passionate discussions about what words should or shouldn't be off limits in the Tracy Press.

The first word came up shortly after Hurricane Katrina released its wrath and drove people from their homes along the Gulf Coast. The wire services described them as evacuees, survivors, victims - and refugees. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and President Bush both took issue with the term refugee, calling it racist when used to describe so many black Americans.

Like other editors, I scrambled to my dictionaries to find out if the word refugee truly excludes Americans in their own country or could reflect racism. I didn't find the definitions to be so narrow.

Still, there are many ways to describe those displaced, and we will avoid the word refugee, keeping in mind the sensitivities of some readers. But like The Associated Press, which provides most of our national news, we'll reserve the right to use it to capture the scope of this disaster on a vast number of our citizens.

Meanwhile, no policy can cover every situation, and in our newsroom, we openly discuss potentially controversial content and words as they come up. Sometimes they are direct quotes. Sometimes they're the reporter's words or an official's description.

Last week, we ran a police log item that described a rape report in which a man was accused of pulling out his penis and telling a 13-year-old girl to orally copulate him. A reader e-mailed us to say she was offended that we had chosen to report something so titillating and sensationalistic in nature.

So we asked, did we cross the line? Did we sensationalize the news?

To me, a report of a rape is far more serious than the theft of two golf putters or a few broken car windows. So I don't think we overplayed the item. However, in retrospect, I think we should have used less graphic words. We could have told the story by writing that the man was accused of exposing himself. He had also demanded oral sex, and I can't think of a way around those words.

It's always been a delicate balancing act to report what's relevant while keeping a certain level of civil discourse, especially in coverage of crime and the courts. As society's mores have become more tolerant, certain words and terms have gained acceptability. Yet we still don't all agree. What one person considers tasteless or vulgar is accurately descriptive or even commonplace to another.

Should community newspapers take the path of least resistance? Should we generalize rather than risk losing readers? Should we shy away from words that describe the human anatomy? I don't think so. But as journalists, we should talk about the words we use and always ask ourselves - before we publish - whether they're necessary to tell a story.

And we should always consider our readers' sensibilities.

Next column: Teenagers and profanity.