Friday, November 07, 2003
Framing the debate
The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as "resistance fighters," saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.
The ban was issued by Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who told the staff in an e-mail circulated on Monday night that the phrase conveyed unintended meaning and asked them to instead use the terms "insurgents" or "guerrillas."
McCoy on Wednesday said that the memo followed a discussion among top editors at the paper and was not sparked by reader complaints. The memo first surfaced on the Web site L.A. Observed.
"(Times Managing Editor) Dean Baquet and I both individually had the same reaction when we saw the term used in the newspaper," McCoy said. "Both of us felt the phrase evoked a certain feeling, that there was a certain romanticism or heroism to the resistance."
McCoy said she considered "resistance fighters" an accurate description of Iraqis battling American troops, but it also evoked World War II -- specifically the French Resistance or Jews who fought against Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.
Story.
posted by chris at 11:59 AM
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