Choice of phrase
- 19 Dec 07, 01:45 PM
I took part in an interesting discussion on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 yesterday (which you can listen to here). Jim Gamble is chief executive of the . He believes the media should stop using the phrases 'child pornography' or 'child porn' but instead use phrases like 'child abuse' or 'images of the sexual abuse of children'. He believes - if I represent his views properly - that the former phrases risk trivialising or hiding the real nature of what’s going on, and that the fact that the phrase 'child porn' (an illegal activity) sounds akin to the phrase 'adult porn' (not necessarily illegal) allows perpetrators and some of the public to downplay the grim realities behind images on the web.
I was there to discuss whether ѿý News should ban the phrases from our output, and I explained why I don't believe we should.
Let me be very clear. I take Mr Gamble's points very seriously and understand well the horrible impact of child abuse. But it's a very big step for ѿý News to ban words - especially ones which in the case of 'child pornography' have I believe a clear, factual meaning. But I also know that editors across ѿý news think very hard about the language of our reporting. And that's what I think they should continue to do, find the appropriate words to tell a story to our various audiences.
So actually, I wouldn't expect to hear the phrase 'child porn' in a Radio 2 or Radio 4 summary - it's rather too casual for those networks for one thing. But my colleagues writing web headlines, with a very tightly restricted number of characters, might use the phrase as shorthand. Listeners to Newsbeat on Radio 1 might hear the phrase on the network - but those same listeners text and e-mail in after reports of child abuse or internet child pornography, making very clear they understand exactly the awfulness of what has happened.
If you go beyond headlines you will find our reports - on radio, television and online - use a variety of phrases - 'downloading images of the sexual abuse of children', 'images created by paedophile networks' and so on. Rather than focus on a headline or two I'd prefer to look at our coverage as a whole. Our careful reporting of for instance over a long period (a series of raids in 2002 targeting people who download sexual images of children) from the police explaining that every such image on the web is not just 'an image' but a picture of a crime scene - that crime being abuse. Our job is to be accurate, specific and provide relevant detail which informs the audience - so that you can make up your own minds.
The Jeremy Vine discussion provoked a fair number of listener texts and e-mails - some sympathetic to Mr Gamble's point of view, some worried about 'political correctness'. I'll be interested in what readers of this post make of the debate.
Mary Hockaday is deputy head of ѿý Newsroom
The magazine publisher - on his generally rather good blog - has at last night's Newsnight send-up of the Lib Dem leadership contest as the X Factor. He asks, "have they done some research that indicates that people are more likely to tune into a current affairs programme if all the items are tricked up like student skits?". 
But - some texters pointed out - if Radio 1 has banned the word "faggot" why are you, Newsbeat, using it? In fact, the word has been used more times in our news coverage of the story than it would have been in the handful of plays the track would have got between now and Christmas. They've got a good point: but we can't tell the story or inform the debate on it all - unless we do use the word. 
There's a larger story too: the pressure that regulators are, rightly or wrongly, putting on broadcasters to avoid offensive words and phrases in music and the greater public scrutiny that broadcasters are under. There's a big debate going on about violence, lyrical content and sexism in hip-hop lyrics and homophobia in reggae dancehall. Again, it's for you to decide whether this scrutiny is right or wrong - an infringement of artistic creativity or a justified defence of minority interests - or perhaps just meddling by journalists? That's a debate for another day but this debate is helping to shape the landscape of modern music broadcasting. 
