Today’s New York Times carries an opinion piece by Lawrence Downes regarding the phrase “illegal immigrant” and its impact. It begins disarmingly:
“I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments — penalties and fines — and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.”
True enough for most of us and a potent reminder not to cast stones. Downes gets to the thrust of his argument here:
“America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.
“…Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. …”
Words matter, a great deal. I know. The use of “illegal” may, in a stretch, be said to “pollute the debate.” But it is disingenuous to blame the use of the word “illegal” whether alone or in conjunction with “immigrant” for “a big part” of the “big problem of immigration.” There is an objective reality of twelve million immigrants who either entered illegally or illegally overstayed their visa. That’s a big number and it represents the bigger part of the “big problem of immigration.”
For the record, my personal editorial preference is for the term “illegal immigrants” (although, I am open to persuasion. see here for a more detailed discussion of my stance). To use “Illegals” strikes me as mean-spirited and sweeping. Inaccurate. I favor the use of “illegal immigrants” simply because it is accurate. More so, as Downes allows, than the alternative, which is to use “undocumented.” He writes:
“Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”
Downes then suggests a valid alternative to “illegal immigrant” and “undocumented immigrant”; namely, “unauthorized”. He says it is a better term because it:
“contain[s] the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow[s] for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. The paralysis in Congress and the country over fixing our immigration laws stems from our inability to get our heads around the wrenching change involved in making an illegal person legal. “
Okay, I ain’t buying his argument hook, line and sinker. (In part, perhaps because I have spent so much time in Latin America where ‘amnesty’ is not necessarily a dirty word but rather a pragmatic recognition of government or societal failure.) But, I will think hard about whether or not to use “unauthorized.” And rethink, once again, the use of “illegal immigrant.” Cool. Fine. Copacetic. Mr. Downes has accomplished what op ed writers set out to do – spur readers to reflect.
Except, except I couldn’t find that two or three line author bio that inevitably follows an NYT op ed such as:
“François Furstenberg, a professor of history at the University of Montreal, is the author of ‘In the Name of the Father: Washington’s Legacy, Slavery and the Making of a Nation’”
Baffled, I Googled Mr. Downes and learned he is a member of the NYT’s Editorial Board. And then I scrolled back to the top of the page (the link was sent to me by La Política’s publisher) and saw the slug at top that says “Editorial Observer.”
I read the NYT six days out of seven but have no idea what exactly is an “Editorial Observer.” Perhaps I haven’t been reading closely enough.
Mr. Downes’s article is listed online under the category of “Editorials” but carries its own distinct heading of “Editorial Observer.”
How can Mr. Downes, as a member of the editorial board, be an “Editorial Observer”? Mr. Downes is very clearly an editorial participant. Isn’t the Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, the in-house “Editorial Observer”?
I don’t get it.
Is this “Editorial Observer’s” column somehow a public airing of a private debate in the NYT’s editorial board? Or does this herald an imminent switch in terminology by the NYT? Either possibility is legitimate but does not explain why Mr. Downes is not identified as a member of the editorial board. A decision that, in fairness, may not be up to Mr. Downes at all.
Among newspaper journalists, “I” is the pronoun that dare not speak its name.
But, I refer to the “Editorial Observer” article and mention my personal thoughts on this matter because the debate over whether to use “illegal immigrants”, “undocumented immigrants” or “unauthorized immigrants” is an important discussion for the newsletter that I edit. It is a matter of editorial policy about which you, the reader, are entitled to know what I think.
Today, my publisher asked me ‘when do you keep your opinion out of the blog?’ My answer is always. I should have answered, I always try and sometimes fail. This post, an editor’s note about an important editorial policy, seems like an obvious and worthwhile exception.
Facts, analysis and conclusions borne of close and repeated observation all are worth including in both La Política’s blog and in the straight news articles. Opinions can be found on our op ed page.
Many journalists today are struggling as I am with how to blog and do straight reporting at the same time. The problem is that the personal expressions that punctuate blogs can puncture straightforward newsgathering, if done by the same journalist. Or at least can puncture the perception of straightforward newsgathering.
I don’t know what the right answer is but I am thinking and working hard to find out.
Obama