Words matter

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Ask the Editor.

And as you heard a moment ago, we’re at Dordt University for the 28th World Journalism Institute collegiate course. And appropriately, this month Ask-the-Editor is on journalism education, because, let's face it, there has been a lot of asking of the editor.

BROWN: No doubt! One of the student projects this week had to do with a couple of cases about to be decided in the Supreme Court: cases on men in women’s sports. And a student question happened to land on the desk of producer Lindsay Mast, who joins us now. 

Good morning, Lindsay!

LINDSAY MAST: Good morning, Nick and Myrna! 

So the students were writing reports about a story that involved transgender athletes—boys who were competing against girls in sports and taking their places on the podium. 

Here’s WORLD’s Lauren Smyth to describe the situation:

LAUREN SMYTH: They were all doing the practice legal case assignment, which concerned two male transgender athletes suing to participate in female sports. One lawyer referred to the plaintiff as "he," and the other used "she," and confusion abounded. The students weren't sure what term to use or how to make it clear to the listener who or what they were talking about.

And this is when the power of what WORLD does at WJI crystallized a little bit more for me. And here’s why. We have dozens of smart, energetic, Christian young people who have come to us from all over the country:

AUDIO: [MONTAGE OF STUDENT INTRODUCTIONS]

These students went through a lengthy application process because they wanted us to put them through the paces on what they will face should they continue in the field of journalism.

And these questions likely won’t go away in their lifetime. 

Most of these students were in elementary school when the Obergefell decision came down. It's possible they’ve never known a social media account that didn’t prompt them to put in pronouns of their own. Facebook added 50 gender options to profiles before they were teenagers. And about 1 out of every 4 of their Gen Z peers would say they fall somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum.

You can see why this generation specifically would need an answer to the question they asked Lauren:

SMYTH: What’s our policy on pronouns for transgender people?

It’s one that our own staff has had to grapple with in jobs at traditional newsrooms. And we deal with that or similar questions every day at WORLD, having to make real time judgment calls about how we will present information to you. 

The Associated Press stylebook has long been the standard for grammar, style, and language among journalists. We like to say that we follow their Style…except when we don’t.

Take for instance, how the Associated Press and an NPR affiliate talked about the drug Mifepristone recently.

AP: Most abortions in the U.S. are obtained by taking medication usually involving this pill, mifepristone.

WUWM: The United States Supreme Court issued a temporary order restoring nationwide access to a widely used abortion medicine.

But what does it mean to call Mifepristone “abortion medication”?

The Cambridge Dictionary defines medication as a medicine or a set of medicines or drugs used to improve a particular condition or illness.

In our May 12th episode, here’s how we handled that same topic:

NICK EICHER: Up next, the U.S. Supreme Court extended a stay yesterday that allows mail orders of the abortion drug, mifepristone.

And that’s just one subtle difference you hear there, calling it an abortion drug, but it comes out of our belief that we tell the truth. And accurate language is vital to truth telling.

Here’s our thinking: first of all, pregnancy is not an illness. Secondly, if a medicine is something that’s harming—killing—a child in the womb, that’s contradictory to medication’s definition of improving a particular condition or illness. 

Sure, mifepristone is packaged like a medication, it comes in pill form, and there are some limited approved uses for it for true illnesses. But in conjunction with the term 'abortion,' it’s not by definition a 'medication,' and using the term that way paints what it does, and why, inaccurately.

And that’s just one topic, one word, out of the roughly five-thousand this program alone produces each day.

Our news director Kent Covington interacts with other reporting probably the most out of any of us at WORLD Radio. He spends time each day combing through its bias. 

Here’s what he told me when I asked about what he encounters:

KENT COVINGTON: Yeah, I think WORLD is honest about having a worldview that serves as our starting point for truth, we're clear about what that is, and so we don't claim to be impartial on all matters because we're clear that the Bible is our starting point, it is our foundation. Whereas in contrast, other sources, a lot of mainstream media sources may claim to be impartial or say they are you know, news "without an agenda" ... when they very clearly do have agendas and a crystal clear worldview of their own. Almost always left of center worldview that drives their story selection, how they prioritize the stories, how they choose their sources, and then, of course, the writing of the stories themselves. And I think WORLD is honest about its worldview while others, frankly, are not as forthcoming.

To be clear: we do not always get these things right. We work under tight deadlines on complex stories. But you can trust that we are thinking about what we say and how we say it. Our editorial staff is talking about it, and trying to cut through noise we now find in sources we once depended on and looked up to.

So that brings us back to WJI and the question raised by the students. 

Here’s what I told Lauren: We tell the truth. A person with XY chromosomes is a man. XX is a woman.

Of course how we tell the truth matters too—we are to do it in love. 

As Christians, we respect each person’s worth and dignity and we are held to a high standard in how we speak of others. So we work hard not to disrespect those who are struggling with identity issues. We may have to spend extra time explaining how someone views him or herself, but we strive to be as accurate as possible.

And that’s one of the reasons we believe in the work of WJI. Some of these students are at Christian schools, some are not. Some are studying journalism, some are in other fields. But they are all young Christians who at least have an interest in living out their worldview in the field of journalism. 

And what WJI provides for them is a place to work through these questions under the guidance of other Christians. We know many of you believe in it too, and give financially to help make it happen each year. 

So we thank you for your support. And we covet your prayers for these students and for those of us tasked with guiding them.

And that’s Ask the Editor for the month of May. I’m Lindsay Mast.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.