Does the New York Times think ‘gay’ is a bad word?»

[babylonsister]

Since I have never 'text-messaged', I have no idea if this is true, but I do trust Think Progress. What century do we live in?


http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/05/times-gay-censor/

Does the New York Times think ‘gay’ is a bad word?»

Towleroad notes that when a reader text messages someone a New York Times article with the word “gay” in the title, the New York Times web service censors the word “gay,” replacing it with a “beep”:



Try it yourself here:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/opinion/28rich.xml

[sandnsea]

1. Teens use it as a slur

Looks like they might have bleeped it in deference to gays.

[babylonsister]

3. That doesn't make sense to me, but maybe that's because

I don't text-message. If info is coming 'from' the NYT, bleeping 'gay' would seem to be a slight.

[sandnsea]

4. Do user comments go through?

I don't know what all goes through the texting, whether blogs and comments come from the NYT too. It just seems precautionary to me, against the use of the word the way teens use it. I seriously doubt they think "gay" is a bad word.

[babylonsister]

5. From Think Progress' link:

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/01/new-york-times.html

A bad word?

Text message someone an article with the word "gay" in the title from the New York Times' mobile website, and they may be a bit confused as to what you're sending them.

That's because the service replaces every instance of "gay" in a headline with the word "beep".

My friend Al sent a message to me on New Years Eve containing a link to Frank Rich's recent column about Rick Warren, and it arrived with the headline "You're Likable Enough, 'beep' People."

Subsequent attempts using different articles turned up the same results. Click image, as it appeared on my iPhone above, to enlarge. Now while I wouldn't be surprised if Rick Warren thought of me as a "beep" person, I'd expect better from the New York Times. I would demand that they change it. I've sent a feedback email to the paper. Will let you know what I hear.

[sandnsea]

8. That really doesn't answer my question

Can you send user comments. Perhaps it is in there to block slanderous user comments.

[ogneopasno]

6. If this is the case, then why would they use it in the hard copy of the paper?

[ogneopasno]

2. That's messed up, seriously.

[iamjoy]

7. Funny Story

I used to volunteer to help Middle School students with reading. I was with one thirteen year old boy and we were reading Robert Frost's "Stopping by the Woods on Snowy Evening."

We got to the line, "My little horse must think it queer" and stopped before the last word. He looked at me all startled and said, "I can't say that word, it's a bad word."

I had to explain to him that the word didn't used to mean the same thing and it was an okay word the way it appeared the poem.

I'm not sure why NYT bleeps the word, unless they some how think it pejorative.

[foxfeet]

9. It took years to get the NYT to use the term "gay"

when the subject was gay people. They previously used only the word "homosexual." It took an ongoing campaign of letter-writing and other "lobbying" to get them to change--they were very resistant. This is one of those tidbits of gay history that is relatively unknown.

[Javaman]

10. what is this beep that you speak of?

the times has jumped the shark.

[11 Bravo]

11. The American Family Association does something similar. I laughed my ass off ...

when their online news outlet ran a story about "Tyson Homosexual" qualifying for the 100 meter dash at the Beijing Olympics.
Twits.