The Double-Edged Sword Of Political Correctness p. 16

By: Debra Gersh Hernandez

While it protects the sensitivities of one group,
it also can inhibit the free speech of another sp.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS like a double-edged sword for some newspeople: while it protects the sensitivities of one group, it also can inhibit the free speech ? however unsavory ? of another.
In an attempt to understand the effect of PC speech in the nation's newsrooms, the American Society of Newspaper Editors discussed its pros and cons during a session of its annual convention.
Moderator Robert Haiman, president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, began with a working definition of political correctness.
"Political correctness is a rigid orthodoxy precluding the acceptability of any contrary view, which gained such acceptance in any group that it, in effect, becomes the institutionalized position of that group," he said.
"Once that view becomes the politically correct view of that group, any member who raises a contrary view may be viewed with suspicion, ignored, shunned, denounced, attacked or silenced," Haiman added.
The term "politically correct" emerged in the 1960s, "when remarks which were judged to be racially or sexually or environmentally inappropriate were sarcastically referred to ? mostly by conservatives ? as being politically incorrect," Haiman explained.
"Since then, the term has actually flooded through the national language, and journalists have been swept up in that tide more each year," he said. "One researcher did a Nexis check which showed only 103 mentions of political correctness in 1988. But a Nexis check for 1993 showed that term was used in your newspapers last year more than 10,000 times."
Haiman noted that there are some people who are "concerned that more serious forces may be in play in many areas of our society. They are concerned that in our wholly legitimate desire to be sensitive to all people . . . we may, albeit inadvertently, be trampling on some of our fundamental principles, including the principle of free speech."
Emory University history professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese pointed out that those who use the term "PC" most often are those attacking it.
"The climate has placed liberals, especially liberal intellectuals ? including the members of the media ? in a difficult situation, to which they have not always responded well," she said. "Fancying themselves committed warriors for freedom of expression, they righteously reject the notion that those whose views they share, much less they themselves, might commit political correctness. But then, the views of the politically correct are, more often than not, the views they do share."
Fox-Genovese noted, "It all started innocently enough with an honorable commitment to discourage overt racism and sexism. But it has rapidly escalated . . . .
"This is the world of debates that never happen, the world in which the range of human thought and opinion is cramped and extinguished ? the world in which if you are not for us, you are against us ? and will be made to shut up or pay the price," she said.
Since the PC debate is "rife with examples of overreaching," Louisville Courier-Journal editor David Hawpe said it is possible to "trivialize the important issue at hand." Words "can brutalize," he said.
"There are limits. Do I want to apply rules which identify words which are outside the normal discourse in my newspaper? Yes. Do I want to compel those who work for me not to use the word 'nigger' in the newspaper, except in quotations when it's relevant? Yes. So I think it is a question of drawing the line."
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel editor Eugene Cryer agreed that PC "is a problem" in his newsroom, and said it has "manifested itself in many ways."
"It has manifested itself in the news report, it has manifested itself internally in the way editors and reporters and staffers of various racial groups and so forth interact with each other, and it has been traumatic on occasion," he explained.
Internally, for example, "if an editor challenges a story about or by a minority staffer, he or she runs the risk of being labeled racist, sexist, whatever."
Externally, Cryer gave the example of a civic group that visited him the day a story about Martin Luther King Jr. was to appear in the paper. They accused him of being racist for not running the story.
He explained, and finally convinced them, that the story did not run because it was full of holes, there had been information missing, it was submitted late, and was slated to run a day later.
Speaking from the audience, Tim McGuire of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, conceded that, "without question, some people take this too far.
"But," he added, "we have distinguished ourselves as a medium, as newspapers, in fighting orthodoxy and ideology throughout the years. We have spotted it, we deal with it and we move on it. Call it for what it is.
"Certainly . . . when we limit debate, we are going against our very core. We have to stimulate debate," McGuire said.
"But what I fear has happened is that we are, many of us are, able to say all of these efforts at decency, at sensitivity are wrong because they are politically correct.
"What we have to do is find a way that we can avoid the orthodoxy but still be sensitive and decent to people who have not seen sensitivity or decency in our newspapers for a long, long time," McGuire added.
"We have not been a multicultural medium; we've been a monocultural medium. We have not recognized needs . . . . We have to find a way to deal with the orthodoxy and still be sensitive and decent," he said.
When asked about his newspaper's decision not to use cultural slang names for sports teams, McGuire explained, "The choice that we've made is that when we speak in our voice, not quotations and not photographs, but when we speak in our voice, that six names . . . offend our American Indian readers in a way that we would not offend other people . . . .
"And we make those kinds of choices in our voice all the time. One can argue that the f-word can be used frequently. It's in quotes all the time; a lot of people use it in language. We all in this room choose not to use it," Mc-Guire continued.
"What finally dawned on me is that over the last 25 or 30 years we have made a lot of word choices. We don't use the n-word that Dave [Hawpe] used earlier.
"There are a lot of words around sex and gender that we don't use. We make that choice about our voice all the time," McGuire told the editors. "We decided that the Indian nickname issue was very similar . . . .
"I think the key issue here is, is the history of the Republic going to collapse because any newspaper has chosen to say Washington football team as opposed to Washington Redskins?
I don't believe it is, and at the same time, a very important, diverse element of our readership and our newsroom who find that name offensive are spared having to stare at being called that every day."