Tuesday, July 18, 2006
A Presidential Word of Four Letters
The beauty -- and the bane -- of language lies in its precision. A specific word uttered by a particular individual carries meaning, even power.
President Bush used the word "shit" when discussing a red-hot international issue, and news organizations around the globe faced the challenge of how to handle a four-letter word uttered by a public official in a public place.
As CNN reported: "An open microphone caught President Bush in an unguarded moment Monday as the escalating crisis in the Middle East prompted him to use an expletive in a conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair."
The two leaders were in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Group of Eight Summit. CNN reported that Bush and Blair were aware that media representatives were present for a photo opportunity.
According to the CNN account, "The President was expressing frustration at the United Nations' stance on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon. Apparently not expecting an open mike to pick up his remarks, Bush told Blair: ‘See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.' "
News organizations generally do not use this word in their copy, nor do electronic media generally use the word on the air. In this case, as reported by Editor and Publisher, many news organization Web sites used the word "shit" in the story about the president's remarks. Some news organizations, including CNN, included links to see the moment and hear the president's comments.
That's justifiable.
The president was discussing an important, international issue. He made a specific comment about a significant element of this issue, the roles of the United Nations and Syria. He made the comment in public. He said this to another world leader.
To be sure, journalists generally abstain from using expletives so as not to offend readers, viewers and listeners. In this case, the word perhaps offends some folks but it's relatively low on the scale of expletives that truly harms sensibilities.
Altering Bush's quote is much more problematic. Using dashes for some letters of the word gets in the way of the specificity of the quote. Blurring the word detracts from the accuracy of what the president said. Changing the reality marginalizes the precision and the power of his statement.
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