Part of a recent email exchange with someone in the Colorado news business involved him asking me the following about media outlets: how do you personally determine what’s left-of-center or right-of-center these days? An interesting question, one that I think is worth some reflection. And while we dropped the thread, the question stuck with me. Is there some test or characteristic that can label a news outlets particular bent?
I think that for many of us, the answer sits somewhere in our vague intuition. What I mean here is we know it when we see it, but it’s hard to articulate into words clearly; we know bias by feel, even if we can’t point to specific things. As a quick side note, I am firmly convinced that this is part why many distrust the news media. We’re told all the time about how their coverage is fair and nonpartisan, but we know it isn’t (even if you couldn’t always sit down and write a list as to why).
That said, you can often readily and easily identify a left-leaning news source by the newness of certain words they are using. I am not sure I’m confident enough to tell you that my rule applies everywhere and all the time, but this is a decent way to answer at least the left-of-center part the question. Some currently used examples of progressive language flesh out what I mean.
Person centered language
Have you ever seen the word “Latinx?” This is a word progressive news outlets use in place of Latino/a, the proper Spanish language construction. Since the ending of the word in Spanish would tell you about the gender of the individual (or group–interestingly, no matter the size of the group technically having one male in it requires the “o” form and not the “a” form), the intent clearly is to avoid assuming anyone’s gender. This recent change to what (mostly) white, progressive, English-as-a-first-language speakers say when talking about people from Mexico, Central and South America almost assuredly originated here in the States. Most native Spanish speakers I have known and know of don’t obsesses over gender in their language, they just speak it.
How about “person centered language”? Whether you know the term or not, my guess is that you will recognize it when you hear it. For example, instead of “homeless” or “homeless people,” I read more and more lately about “persons experiencing homelessness.” Similar constructions are applied to any number of other things, a person living with HIV, or a person with a substance abuse disorder. This is quite a novel construction for English, our usual pattern is to put noun after adjective such as a “red ball” not a “ball experiencing redness.”
While we’re talking people, I don’t like to talk about my age much, but I am old enough to remember that up until just a few years ago it was women who got pregnant, not people. I suppose language moved faster than biology here. I have had it explained to me more than once why the change is needed, but I suppose I just can’t seem to internalize it.
Newcomers?
The last one I’ll highlight was, I believe, coined right here in Colorado. “Newcomers” as replacement for migrants, immigrants, illegal immigrants, asylum-seekers, etc. The seeming rapidity of how media refer to people who come or are shipped up from the Southern Border to Colorado provides an interesting look at the creation of new labels. You could just about see this one change in real time, you could just about see TV news anchors checking their notes each night before speaking.
I hint at it above, but you will probably note that these words share something besides (or because of) their newness. They’re free of any smudges or fingerprints; they have yet to settle into a connotation. When you read “homeless man” what image comes to mind? What about “person experiencing homelessness”? My guess is that the latter puts no clear image in your head. At the very least, it may do what it does to my brain, making you wonder if and how this is the same or different than a homeless person.
I think that’s the point. This is a feature not a bug. The reason for using new words is to break any meaning-making you might have done on your own.
It’s fun to play with words. Mix them up, mash them together, coin new ones or use them in nonstandard ways for effect. Shakespeare himself was famous for doing this. Our media ain’t Shakespeare though. News stories tend to be more about informing first and entertaining second. It’s both the point of the medium, and it’s also a hell of a lot easier as a writer working on a deadline to write in straightforward language than to let your wild creativity run free with multiple rewrites to hone it down.
The appearance of new words in media, then, is striking. Its presence is saying something you should listen to. Left-leaning outlets follow the movements of left-leaning culture. Both almost have to make new words (or use them in new ways) so that they stay ahead of the traditional meanings. Using more traditional language might give rise to readers and listeners making associations they don’t really want. It is this desire, manifest in coining new terms, that tags outlets as to their ideological lean. It answers the question at the start.
Cory Gaines is a regular contributor to Complete Colorado. He lives in Sterling on Colorado’s Eastern Plains and also writes at the Colorado Accountability Project substack.
