By Andres Oppenheimer | The Miami Herald
The fact that The Associated Press news agency decided to ban the term “illegal immigrant” last week is a big victory for fairness in journalism, but there are other terms used daily in the media that should be revised as well.
Before we get to them, let’s make it clear that we are talking about expressions that should be used in straight news stories, as opposed to opinion columns – such as this one – where journalists should enjoy a greater flexibility to play with words to express their personal feelings.
As we have been writing here for several years, the term “illegal immigrant” is unfair and demeaning, because no human being is “illegal.” A driver who speeds is not an “illegal driver,” nor is a person who doesn’t pay the rent an “illegal tenant.” At long last, the new AP Stylebook recognizes that there are illegal actions, not illegal people.
Even worse is the use of the word “illegals” as a noun, which dehumanizes undocumented immigrants and paints all of them as dangerous criminals. Fox News and other immigrant-allergic news outlets still use “illegals” all the time.
“There are other terms, such as “chain migration,” or “anchor babies,” or “the flood of immigrants,” that are used every day in the press, despite the fact that the number of undocumented immigrants has fallen in recent years, says Kathryn Vargas, a spokeswoman for the National Immigration Forum advocacy group. “These terms are loaded with hostility and take the human face out of the immigration debate.”
But there are other terms that are used daily in the media, such as “gun control,” that also deserve closer scrutiny.
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