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Jul182007

Reader Is Bull About The Word S—

Filed under Uncategorized by nick pappas at 4:22 pm

What type of language is not appropriate when found within the pages of your local newspaper?

That's the question raised this past weekend by a Hudson reader, who took offense at our decision to quote a Nashua man using the word "bullshit" in a story in Saturday's Telegraph.

The story, written by reporter Albert McKeon based on interviews with people who attended Friday's visit to Nashua by Bill and Hillary Clinton, contained the following quote attributed to 90-year-old Charles Boghigian:

"I like 'em both. They're good talkers. What they say is sincere. It's not bullshit. I think she's much smarter than he is, although he was a good president."

And that didn't sit too well with one of our readers.

"I was shocked to read the quote by Mr. Boghigian using inappropriate language in the Saturday July 14 Telegraph," the reader wrote in an e-mail to our reporter. "I'm very surprised that you and your editor decided it was worth including in the story.

"I don't recall that term or any offcolor curse word being used in a Telegraph article. Shall I find another newspaper to teach my son about current events? Or do you believe that I should expect substandard language to be considered appropriate in all publications?"

All of which got me wondering how common — or more likely uncommon — it has been over the years for us to use the s-word in one of our news stories. My gut told me it was pretty rare, but I didn't know for sure.

So I ran the term through our electronic library, which dates back to 1984, and it came back with three hits, including the most recent.

The other two?

  • Feb. 19, 2006: Former sports reporter/copy editor Pete LeBlanc quoted an anonymous Londonderry High School hockey player referring to the rink used by another high school as a "shit hole."
  • June 28, 2007: Statehouse reporter Kevin Landrigan quoted state Rep. Daniel Eaton of Stoddard saying, "This is absolute bullshit," in response to Republican criticism of the House budget.

To put this into some context, then, that's three times out of the thousands of stories we've published in the past 23 years. No wonder it might have stood out on the page to some of our readers.

Coincidentally, we're not the only newspaper to have drawn reader ire over the use of the term in recent weeks.

Reader Representative Ted Diadiun dedicated part of his column this past Sunday for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in response to some readers expressing shock over the use of the word in a story about a firefighter who is charged with shooting three people to death.

Before doing so, a witness quoted the gunman as telling his soon-to-be-victims: "I'll bet you guys won't be doing this shit again."

The use of the term was believed to be the first time in the Plain Dealer's history that it appeared on Page 1, though a search of the newspaper's electronic library back to 1981 found it had been used 16 times elsewhere.

While Diadiun acknowledged some of the other uses over the years were questionable, he defended the newspaper's decision in this case given the circumstances.

"The full, direct quote put readers at the scene in a way that using the letter 's' and a bunch of hyphens could not," he wrote.

All of which raises a rather simple question or two: Should newspapers never use language of this type? Or are there times when its use should be dictated by the specific circumstances?

Personally, I believe the use of the s-word should be the exception rather than the rule, which clearly has been the case here based on the review of our electronic library. Still, there are those occasions — and the Cleveland example arguably is one of them — when the newsworthiness of the unvarnished quote should trump general policy.

But what do you think?

 

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