When the Toronto Star wrote about a new movie being shown at a film festival in Toronto, a debate ensued in the newsroom about whether or how to use the film's title in its coverage. The entertainment staff wanted to use the actual title, which included the F-word. The editor decided to stick with AP style and use dashes after F so readers would not be offended. Here's how a columnist at the paper explained the reasoning. The AP stylebook essentially says do not use profanity unless there is a compelling reason.
This isn't the first time the issue has come up in newspaper coverage. In 2004, when Vice President Dick Cheney told a senator to F--- off, the Washington Post spelled out exactly what he said. The decision was made, according to Post editors, because the vice president had used the phrase publicly, and it was deemed newsworthy.
After the Sept. 11th attacks, the San Francisco Chronicle used Bastards! as its headline, trying to capture the outrage of the day.
Most editors will tell you that deciding to use profanity is not an easy decision to make. Will readers be offended? Do you weigh that against capturing the actual moment? What do you think? Did the Toronto editor make a good decision? Would the decision be different at a student newspaper, and if so, why?
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6 comments:
I disagree with the decision not to use the proper title of the film in this instance. If they needed to they could have put a warning on page one of their entertainment section and then ran the story of page 2. I'm giving the people involved with the naming of the movie the benefit of the doubt and that the title wasn't arbitrarily decided upon. With art, changing the title of a piece of art can change the meaning as well, and to me is a disservice to it. To me if you write about a specific proper noun you need to address it correctly. One of my favorite movies is titled F--kland in the United states and the decision to censor it like that adds confusion since it takes place in the Falkland Islands. That decision gave the movie two vastly different and appropriate titles based on the content of the movie, and changed the movie.
I also disagree with the decision by the Washington Post to fully quote Vice President Cheney. In this instance using "F---" would have not taken anything away from his quote. The decision by the San Francisco Chronicle was completely inappropriate, baring the paper had decided to take the stance that in all future references "Bastard" would be allowed in it's articles.
A similar problem arose in your folks neck of the woods last year. The East Lansing Film Festival showed the aforementioned movie and did not know how to advertise it around campus. The name of the movie is not $&%)ing censored.
I agree with the papers decision to not use the entire "F" word. I know the U.S is fairly liberal when it comes to freedom of the press but I believe they were trying to be respectful of all who don't want to see profanity as soon as they look at the newspaper. And if you use the "-" or "*" to substitute letters, I would hope in today's advanced society that you know it is probably because the language is explicit. (Unless your playing a game of hangman) A-S,F--K,S--T...I'm guessing that you probably know I wasn't trying to say any other words but profanity. I think the paper was trying to give a little credit to the intelligence of its readers and know that they weren't saying FALK or FULK...if the "--" were there, then it was because profanity was being used and they did not want to offend anyone. They could have lost a lot of readers to that, especially the religious ones.
Using "BASTARDS!" as headline wasn't necessarily the smartest move but I think they put courtesies aside for the time and decided to put down what the nation as pretty much a whole was feeling towards the terrorists at that time!
As far as the news printing something the V.P said, I back them up. If he didn't want it to show up in the news, he shouldn't have said it or in range of where reporters could hear it or write it down. The AP Stylebook says that you are not to use obscenities, profanities or vulgarities UNLESS it is part of a direct quote and there is a compelling reason for them. What he said was part of a direct quote and as far as a compelling reason...He's a public figure and it makes GREAT news(Can't deny readers love a little gossip)!!! You take certain responsibilities into becoming a public figure, including watching what you say and who you say it to because if he hasn't learned now, these things come back to bite you on the A--!
Clarification, the reason FALK could have easily been meant in the title of the movie I referenced was because the main character/producer was Argentinian, and the issues regarding the country and the United Kingdom over ownership rights have made discussion of the islands similar to curse words. It's simply not something to be said, and could also be a dig at how to the Argentinians the islands are the Malvinas and not the Falklands. The title therefor could have easily been something similar to the Taiwan/Chinese Taipei naming controversy. The decision to either imply or deny the existence of the islands would have been a big political statement , and by changing the title the way it was done it added a subtext to the movie.
I wasn't speaking directly...I could have easily said FELK or FORK..I just took from the first and last letter of the alphabet. I just think that if they mean it to be a explicit word, there would be no use for the dashes. Nobody can sue the newspaper for use of the word FULK or FALK just because it looks like another word but they can if it is that explicit word.
I see this as a wise decision from a business standpoint, but I'm a firm believer in George Carlin's notion of creative language and think word censorship is not only silly, it's a function of mind-control.
Idealogically, I see censorship of anything attempting meant to contribute to the marketplace of ideas and produce intelligent debate, a fundamentally unethical act.
The broad catalog of meaning behind f--- encompasses a very large number of uses, from the act of sex (which all adults should be able to handle- it's how they came to be) and an expression of rage experienced by all of us at some point.
If the communication of an act of rage (yelling because you bumped your head on the cupboard) offends someone (not upsets, that's different) their feelings are irrational hypersensitivity. Furthermore, it's illogical to think that replacing the letters u, c, and k will somehow subdue what, in essence, conveys the exact same meaning! The only difference is the word itself, which is nothing more than a patterned stamp of ink upon paper.
This verbal covering up of 'private parts' is part of an idea of obscuring, rather than clarifying not just what's behind a bra, but what's meant in an idea. The blurring of thoughts pushes us backwards as a society, for clarifying our own thoughts is a key in the evolution of humankind.
I agree that it's tasteless and immature to mutter the F-word egregiously, but that goes for any word. A good speaker must know when to place words so their impact is most insightful and appropriate.
That's my opinion.
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