NY Times Drops "Illegals," As Fox Continues To Cling To Slur

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201112140009

December 14, 2011 12:11 pm ET by Solange Uwimana


In a post on his blog yesterday, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, currently an op-ed columnist for the paper, answered readers who have repeatedly criticized him and the paper of record for their incessant use of derogatory term "illegals." Keller shared a handful of emails from readers, including from one who noted that the term "reduces human beings to a status label, and a morally loaded one at that."

The reader's email continued:

It reduces the essence of a person to an act of violation, an offense. When you use "illegals" as the object of a sentence it literally erases the human beings who the sentence is about and makes the grammatical object of the sentence an abstraction, a label of condemnation.

Keller was particularly criticized for using the term in his Monday column, which he did no less than four times. In defending himself to readers, he wrote:

[safeinOhio]

1. Perhaps we could start calling FOX news

Xenophobias.

[pinto]

2. Great coverage of the issue from MediaMatters.

I particularly liked the inclusion of Michele Salcedo's remarks (an AP political desk anchor and current president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists).

[Luminous Animal]

3. Good, but I like the standards of the National Assoc. of Hispanic Journalists better.

"Using the word 'illegal' to describe an immigrant puts journalists in the position of being judge and jury," she said via email. "It casts all immigration cases as black and white: legal or illegal. That leaves little room for this most complicated law's nuances."

[NNN0LHI]

4. Nice to see the NY Times doing the right thing

I am not a big fan of the NT Times and I criticize them when they are wrong. But When they are right I am going to give them credit where credit is due.

Don

[Lance_Boyle]

5. 'Illegals' is a convenient shorthand

to avoid writing out "illegal aliens" multiple times. As long as the Times steers clear of agenda-driven and inherently dishonest euphemisms like "undocumented laborer" in referring to illegal aliens I have no problem with their change.