The F-Word...No...Not That One...

Tom Avila is a contributing writer to Metro Weekly [1] news magazine and a staffer for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) [2]. He has written a book...which no one has chosen to publish.

Come December 3, Don Imus will be back on the airwaves.

Unless you were sequestered in a monastery or on a reality show, you know what Imus said on the air last spring about the Rutger's women's basketball team. Chances are that you, like me, never regularly listened to the radio show nor watched his television program, but heard exactly what he said, thanks to journalists who covered the case and repeated the same slur that had several national journalism organizations calling for his ouster.

You may also know what actor Isaiah Washington called Grey’s Anatomy cast member TR Knight, which some reporters quickly dubbed the “f-word” and others simply repeated in full. In case you happened to forget, the press used it again when Isaiah said it again to say that he had never said it in the first place.

It happened again when Ann Coulter used the same “f-word” to talk about presidential candidate John Edwards. A quick Internet search will take you to the Web site of one cable news network where you can read an article and view a video piece about the incident.  If you’re unsure about the “f-word” I’m referring to, it’s used often enough in both pieces that you should pick it right up.

So where is the line? Are these offensive words less harmful when spoken in the calm tones of a newscaster or replayed in the context of a full story package? Are they less hateful in your morning newspaper than when they are, say, sprayed on the side of someone’s home?

Is speech that includes language that is hateful, hate speech?

It’s not the easiest question to answer. The argument can be made that, in each of these instances, the core of the news narrative was a slur. How can the story be told without it? Do phrases like “racially-offensive epithet” or “a derogatory term for gay men”…or the “f-word” communicate the actual weight of what was being said?

Well, let’s consider. Would those news outlets and reporters using the “f-word” feel comfortable using the “n-word” on the air or in print? When an audio tape of Dog, the Bounty Hunter surfaced with the reality star liberally using the “n-word,” programs playing the recording bleeped the word.

In fact, that same news network that has the video piece of Coulter saying the “f-word” has a piece on Dog. Not only is the audio bleeped, the close captioning primly uses dashes to render the “n-word.”

So why bleep Dog and not Coulter or Washington?

The answer lies in the accepted hierarchy of hate speech. It’s what I think of as the playground insult scale. If your child, or hypothetical child (hypothetical children are much easier and less expensive to raise), were to use the slur in question against another child, how severe would your reaction be? Would it be greater for some words than others?

Now, some will say that the issue is not the words themselves but the intention of those words. Saying that someone used the “f-word” in the context of a story is not the same as using it against an individual.

Recently, a well-known Latino reporter used a derogatory slang term for Mexicans during a dinner speech. It was certainly not used against any individual in the room, it was meant to call passionate attention to a critical coverage issue he believed existed. But part of me, the part that is the grandson of a Mexican immigrant, was offended. Not because I believed this reporter was calling me the word, but because the word is designed to insult and dehumanize. When I heard it, spoken aloud in that comfortably lit hotel ballroom, the affect was the same as if it had been hurled from the window of a passing car.

Journalists need to ask whether there is a playground insult scale in their own newsroom. Is some derogatory language allowed while other words are deemed out-of-bounds? What are the lines and who has the final say? And, perhaps more importantly, what is being communicated to the audience when slurs against one community are considered acceptable while others are not?

These are the kinds of questions that journalists need to start raising in their newsrooms sooner than later. Imus is on his way back. You may well have another slur story to write shortly. 

The opinions expressed in this essay, whether you find them insightful or completely inappropriate, are the author’s own and not those of his employer, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

Click here for more columns by Tom Avila [3].