What do pundits David Brooks and Fareed Zakaria, leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky, author Malcolm Gladwell, choreographer Bill T. Jones, chess champion Garry Kasparov, jazz leader Wynton Marsalis, novelists J.K. Rowling and Salman Rushdie, feminist Gloria Steinem, civil liberties scholar Nadine Strossen, and teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten have in common?
Not a whole lot except that they are celebrities and joined 153 critics of both President Donald Trump and “cancel culture” in endorsing a dire July 7 letter warning that “ideological conformity” is stifling “open debate and toleration of differences” in America. The signers see “greater risk aversion” among journalists and other writers “who fear for their livelihoods,” alongside editors “fired for running controversial pieces” (talking to you, New York Times).
Another large group, heavy with journalists of color, quickly issued an acerbic response that hailed the media and cultural institutions for starting to end their protection of “bigotry” and the power held by “white, cisgender people.”
Wait, there’s more. Media circles will be buzzing for some time about the resignation letter of Bari Weiss upon leaving The New York Times, made public Tuesday, which contained hints at possible legal action linked to on-the-job harassment. This was followed immediately by Andrew Sullivan's announcement of his departure from New York magazine. which he will explain in his final column Friday.
The bottom line: This is the most tumultuous time for American culture, and thus for the news media, in a generation.
In one aspect, financially pinched print journalism continues to drift toward imitation of slanted and profitable cable TV news (often quote — “news” — unquote).
New York magazine’s E. Alex Jung links journalistic neutrality with “white supremacy.” CBS correspondent Wesley Lowery scorns “objectivity.” A Times profile says woke Washington Post staffers lament that noted editor Marty Baron clings to outdated notions of fairness and balance.
A second trend is the way ever-shifting sensitivities on race and gender affect writers’ verbiage. During the George Floyd protests, Black Los Angeles Times reporters informed management that “looting” carries racial connotations, while the National Association of Black Journalists president denounced “riot” as a racist term. A redefinition by Nikole Hannah-Jones, editor of the New York Times’s slavery-centric “1619 Project,” asserts that “destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”
In the wake of the massive protests, some news organizations changed copy style to capitalize Black. The influential Associated Press Stylebook is also capitalizing “Indigenous,” but is undecided about what to do with “white.” The New York Times went with capitalized Black but kept lower-case white and brown, seen as more diffuse labels, plus white is “capitalized by hate groups.” The Chicago Sun-Times will go to upper-case when both Black and Brown are used together.
Speaking of The AP, in May it responded to feminists by banning “mistress” for a woman in a sexual and financial relationship with a married man. The word is considered sexist on grounds that there’s no male equivalent, although commentators cited the male “paramour,” “philanderer,” “womanizer” and “gigolo." With the woman, The AP’s proposed replacements, “companion” or “lover,” lack the needed specificity. “Homewrecker fits quite nicely,” one helpful tweet suggested.
Also in May, The New York Times lavished five full pages on its “Mrs. Files” project concerning usage over time, saying that old honorific treats “marriage like a prize” and erases “a woman’s identity.” In 1986, the daily began using “Ms.” and now allows “Mx.” alongside the new gender-ambiguous pronouns.
Looking at moral and religious matters, The AP requires “anti-abortion” vs. “abortion-rights” to designate the two sides, rather than the less partisan “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice.” Meanwhile, “cult” and “fundamentalist” are rightly warned about as problematic, often used simply to indicate “a religious group we don’t like much” (see tmatt discussion on that point).
In 2018, Religion News Service columnist Thomas Reese’s “note to newspaper editors” said “Catholic church” should be distinguished from the “Catholic hierarchy” or “bishops.” That is, journalists say “the church teaches” this or that when it is the leaders who teach while members may dissent, and it’s wrong to say “the Catholic church did not protect children” when only the bishops were at fault.
Another complex media snarl results from the English language’s lack of a third person singular pronoun that encompasses both genders. Feminists have long advocated the plural they-their-them for individuals when either gender is meant. Lately, activists champion these plural pronouns to refer to transgender or non-binary individuals, which can create confusion about who a pronoun refers to.
Bryan A. Garner, author of “The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage and Punctuation” and “Garner’s Modern English Usage,” and a new National Review columnist, has explored the “they” quandary at length.
Garner says usage innovations in Standard English go through five stages. (1) Clearly wrong. (2) Still wrong but less serious and used by more people. (3) Still wrong, but common enough that well-educated people use it. (4) Only sticklers such as copy editors still insist it’s wrong. (5) A one-time error that no reasonable person now spurns. Garner figures it will take a generation for the singular “they” to reach Stage 5.
In the meantime, he expects writers will make less use of “binary’ words such as “men,” “women,” “son,” “daughter,” “boy,” “girl,” “husband” and “wife.”
So, what’s the future for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day?
Note The Guy’s previous “keeping up” Memos here, here and then here.