Last Friday, National Public Radio standards editor Mark Memmott handed down an edict all but banning the term "Redskins" from the left-leaning taxpayer-financed network.
Reporting the development on Tuesday, NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos signaled his hearty approval:
I suspect that, in practice, NPR will rarely, if ever, use the R-word again. Or, it will be couched in some way. What we are witnessing is a shifting media consensus on how to define and use a word with racial implications. We American journalists like to insist that it is not our responsibility to decide on what facts to report—"we report, you decide," goes the saying—but that is true only to a point, as NPR's own Code of Ethics states. For a smart analysis on how the news media arrives at an unstated consensus on something, read this story by one of NPR's own political reporters, Alan Greenblatt.
[...]
[T]here is the matter of morality that editors must consider, no matter what their interpretation of news ethics is. An article this month in Psychology Today pulls together the growing number of studies that show how the name undermines the sense of self-worth of many Native Americans, contributing to what on many reservations is by far some of the nation's highest levels of alcoholism, drug addiction, teenage suicide, unemployment and other ills. According to the research, many American Indians in effect feel bullied and fatalistically helpless to do anything about it.
Editors must step cautiously in defining morality, but step they must sometimes. To shirk that responsibility is itself immoral.
Matters of morality, moreover, are not just the responsibility of the newsroom, but of the executive suite, too. Editors rightfully defend their independence in making news judgments, but morality is a subjective matter that can affect the fundamental character, audience and legal standing of the news medium, making decisions at some point a management prerogative.
The opposition to the name of the Washington team is not some new demonstration of political correctness, as many supporters of the name proclaim. Organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians have been fighting the name since the 1960s, but it is only now that they have the money and influence to be heard.
NPR is doing the right thing to listen and act.
Of course if the name Washington Redskins is verboten because the "R-word" is archaic, offensive, and lends itself to degrading the self-esteem of Native American children, the same could be argued for the terms "colored people" and "Negro." Of course, there is no organized pressure group on the Left agitating for a name change for say the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the United Negro College Fund, even as virtually everyone would agree that "Negro" and "colored person" retain negative connotations from the days of Jim Crow.
As much as NPR wishes to insist this is not about caving to political pressure from a left-wing interest group, the presence of such double standards confirms that this is not about morality or cultural sensitivity and all about political appeasement.
