“Guttural Phrases” and “Vulgar Directives”: The Evolution of Press Standards on Profanity

Abstract

Historically, major American newspapers have rarely printed expletives, obscenities, and vulgarities. When newspapers have deviated from that norm, it has usually been for one of four reasons: to report on a political figure cursing publicly; to convey realism in a story about a marginalized group (often a racial minority); to express the emotions of people in traumatic situations; or to quote faithfully from a book or film. Using digitized historical newspapers, industry publications, and archival sources, it is possible to analyze how the press’s standards and practices on profanity have shifted from the 1960s to the Donald Trump era. The changes at the Associated Press and the New York Times are especially noteworthy, because their guidelines provide the model for many other news organizations.

Endnotes

Notes

1 Alexander Burns, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Martin, “Tape Reveals Trump Boast About Groping Women,” New York Times, October 8, 2016.

2 Scaramucci was quoted saying “fucking” and using the phrase “suck my own cock.” Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, “Uncensored, Scaramucci Rails at His Rivals in the West Wing,” New York Times, July 28, 2017.

3 Searches of digitized historical newspapers on ProQuest Historical Newspapers and newspapers.com.

4 The only in-depth study of profanity in newspapers is in Melvin J. Lasky, The Language of Journalism, Volume One: Newspaper Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000), 328–377; but it is rambling and impressionistic, with no discernible argument or methodology. Works that focus on other forms of media include: John E. Semonche, Censoring Sex: A Historical Journey Through American Media (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007); Joshua N. Lambert, Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture (New York: NYU Press, 2013); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Barbara K. Kaye and Barry S. Sapolsky, “Offensive Language in Prime Time Television: Before and After Content Ratings,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 45, no. 2 (2001): 303–319.

5 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978), 112–117; Gay Talese, The Kingdom and the Power (New York, Random House, 2007 [orig. pub. 1969]), 6–7, 72–74.

6 Many broadcasters have incurred fines or other penalties from the FCC for airing expletives. Famous works of literature such as James Joyce’s Ulysses, D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl were banned from importation. Esquire magazine had its second-class mailing privileges revoked in the 1940s because of its ribald jokes and cartoons (the postmaster’s decision was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1946, but the Court upheld the government’s power to ban obscene material from the mail). The government determined that specific issues of other magazines, such as Confidential, were “nonmailable.” See Whitney Strub, “Slouching Towards Roth: Obscenity and the Supreme Court, 1945–1957,” Journal of Supreme Court History 38, no. 2 (2013): 121–138; Samantha Barbus, “The Most Loved, Most Hated Magazine in America: The Rise and Demise of Confidential Magazine,” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 25, no. 1 (2016): 121–193; Patricia Robertus, “Obscenity in the Mails: Controls on Second-Class Privileges,” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism, Law Division, August 1975), accessed via ERIC database, https://eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED119243.

7 J. Michael Lennon, Norman Mailer: A Double Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 94, 793.

8 Kenneth Cmiel, “The Politics of Civility,” in The Sixties: From Memory to History, edited by David R. Farber (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 274–276.

9 Geoffrey Hughes, Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English (New York: Penguin, 1998 [orig. pub. 1991]), 197.

10 Melissa Mohr, Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 244.

11 Vincent Redding to John R. Rutherford, August 25, 1965, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 32, folder 1, New York Public Library (hereafter NYPL). Redding was responding to a letter from the advertising manager of the Christian Science Monitor (a newspaper founded as a refuge against sensationalism and tastelessness), who explained that the Monitor refused ads for movies labeled “for adults only.”

12 Vincent Redding to Messrs. Wells, Kaufmann, Furey, and McNamara, February 14, 1964, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 36, folder 6, NYPL.

13 “Los Angeles Times Screening Code,” clipping from Advertising Age, January 25, 1965, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 32, folder 1, NYPL; “Los Angeles Times Adopts Code to Ban Lurid Film Ads,” Wall Street Journal, January 20, 1965.

14 Vincent Redding to Ivan Veit, January 3, 1968, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 32, folder 1, NYPL.

15 Sydney Gruson to A. M. Rosenthal, March 10, 1971, with attached letter from anonymous staffer, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 32, folder 1, NYPL.

16 “Drawing the Line on Porno Ads,” San Francisco Examiner, December 8, 1970, 36.

17 Harold Boian to Anna Quindlen, June 23, 1977, with attached Denver Post memo from September 28, 1972, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 32, folder 2, NYPL.

18 “All the Ads Fit to Print,” Time, September 12, 1977, 114.

19 Anna Quindlen, “The Times Will Curb Ads for Pornographic Films,” New York Times, June 21, 1977; John D. Pomfret to Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, April 25, 1977, New York Times Company Records, General Files, box 32, folder 2, NYPL.

20 Bulletin from Los Angeles Times Public Relations department, August 23, 1977, Los Angeles Times Records, box 170, folder 6, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. On restriction of pornography advertising in newspapers, see also Carolyn Bronstein, Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 148–153.

21 Dennis McDougal, Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2001), 317.

22 See, for example, Michael Schudson, The Rise of the Right to Know: Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945–1975 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 143–179; Matthew Pressman, On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), 184–218; Steven E. Clayman, Marc N. Elliott, John Heritage, and Megan K. Beckett, “A Watershed in White House Journalism: Explaining the Post-1968 Rise of Aggressive Presidential News,” Political Communication 27 (2010): 229–247; Larry J. Sabato, Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics (New York: Free Press, 1991).

23 Edwin Diamond, Behind the Times: Inside the New New York Times (New York: Villard Books, 1994), 150–162; James Brian McPherson, Journalism at the End of the American Century, 1965-Present (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), 28, 87–88; Pressman, On Press, 134–142.

24 Thomas R. Schmidt, “Rediscovering Narrative: A Cultural History of Journalistic Storytelling in American Newspapers, 1969–2001” (PhD dissertation, University of Oregon, 2017): 168–174.

25 “Profanity in Report Seldom Justified,” The Associated Press Service Bulletin no. 50, June 14, 1919, from Associated Press Collections Online.

26 Edwin L. Battistella, Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 72.

27 Edward T. Folliard, “Harriman defends State Dept.,” Washington Post, April 19, 1963.

28 Russell Baker, “Observer,” New York Times, December 27, 1962.

29 Drew Pearson, “Barry’s profanity protested by many,” Detroit Free Press, January 17, 1964.

30 See those papers’ editions of September 12, 1964, accessed via newspapers.com.

31 “On Two Fronts,” Time, March 17, 1967, 31.

32 “Expletives in texts cause little fuss,” The AP Log, July 22, 1974, Associated Press Collections Online.

33 Mike Duffy (Associated Press), “Press reaction varied to undeleting expletives,” White Plains Journal-News, July 10, 1974.

34 “Excerpts from Committee Evidence,” Newport News Daily Press, July 12, 1974.

35 “Expletives in texts cause little fuss,” AP Log.

36 Duffy, “Press reaction varied to undeleting expletives.”

37 “Expletives in texts cause little fuss,” AP Log.

38 Laura Babb, “‘Share work’: Steinem,” Washington Post, April 18, 1974.

39 Gary Shaw, “Hayakawa, with 1% edge here, visits Bonita,” Chula Vista Star-News, September 5, 1976.

40 MacDiarmid, Hugh, “The hard times and high style of bad Basil Brown,” Detroit (Sunday magazine of Detroit Free Press), June 6, 1976, 160–165.

41 Ibid.

42 Jack Miller, “New rights official speaks his mind,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 15, 1969.

43 Marty Jezer, Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 165; “Testimony of Abbie Hoffman,” Chicago Eight trial, available at http://www.famous-trials.com/chicago8/1326-hoffman, accessed August 26, 2018.

44 Richard Reeves, “Mailer and Breslin enter race,” New York Times, May 2, 1969.

45 Sara Davidson, “Mailer, Breslin race stresses irreverence,” Boston Globe, May 4, 1969.

46 J. Anthony Lukas, “Judge Hoffman is taunted at trial of the Chicago 7 after silencing defense counsel,” New York Times, February 6, 1970; Lukas, “Two of Chicago 7 don black robes,” New York Times, February 7, 1970.

47 “Whip his what? Bad word makes big news,” Time, June 25, 1979, 45.

48 Juan Williams, “EEOC chairman blasts black leaders,” Washington Post, October 25, 1984.

49 Michael York, “Excerpts of videotape from Barry’s arrest at the Vista Hotel,” Washington Post, June 29, 1990.

50 David Shaw, “Why most editors lean to dashes, dots, euphemisms,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1991.

51 Lori Robertson, “Language barriers,” American Journalism Review 22, no. 9 (November 2000): 38–41.

52 Dan Kois, “When do papers print the F-word?” Slate.com, June 25, 2004, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2004/06/when_do_papers_print_the_fword.html

53 Alan Wolper, “Truth to be found in dirty language?” Editor & Publisher, March 22, 2006.

54 Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Salty language as Cheney and senator clash,” New York Times, June 25, 2004; Susan Milligan, “Cheney said to aim profanity at senator,” Boston Globe, June 25, 2004.

55 Pamela Newkirk, Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media (New York University Press, 2000), 166.

56 Carolyn Martindale, The White Press and Black America (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986).

57 Linda Greenhouse, “At the Talk Center, they talk of drugs,” New York Times Magazine, February 21, 1971, 67–70. This article appeared in the Sunday magazine of the New York Times, which in 1971 was a separate entity from the daily newspaper and had more lenient standards.

58 Andrea Elliott, “Invisible child; girl in the shadows: Dasani’s homeless life,” December 9, 2013.

59 Margaret Sullivan, “‘Invisible Child’: Behind the Scenes, Before and After.” New York Times Public Editor’s blog, December 12, 2013, https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/invisible-child-behind-the-scenes-before-and-after/.

60 Alec MacGillis, “Breaking: New York Times Uses F-word!” New Republic online, December 13, 2013, https://newrepublic.com/article/115921/new-york-times-use-f-word-dasani-series-makes-history.

61 “Language and Newspapers,” AP Log, December 1–7, 1968, Associated Press Collections Online.

62 “Jury told Thomas ‘in rage,’” Dayton Journal-Herald, August 10, 1971.

63 Eric Hoffer, “First things, last things…,” Emporia Gazette, January 26, 1972.

64 Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010 [orig. pub. 2008]), 238.

65 Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (New York: Random House, 2005), 197.

66 William J. Drummond, “Anarchy of the ‘street people’ rises as specter in Berkeley,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 1968.

67 Art Buchwald, “Need a radical speaker? Call the local lecture bureau,” Washington Post, April 23, 1970.

68 Colman McCarthy, “Up against the wall motherhood,” Washington Post, June 3, 1973; Russell Baker, “Mother Up Against the Wall,” New York Times, April 11, 1974.

69 Leroy F. Aarons Jr., “Angela’s love letters prove to be just that,” Washington Post, April 26, 1972.

70 Newkirk, Within the Veil, 18.

71 Reginald Major, “…or opting to score by daily hustle,” Des Moines Tribune, June 25, 1979.

72 Richard E. Meyer, “The story of Michael: a child of the Watts riot,” Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1980.

73 Earl Caldwell, interview with author, October 3, 2014.

74 Carol A. Stabile, White Victims, Black Villains: Gender, Race, and Crime News in U.S. Culture (New York: Routledge, 2006), 164–166, 181–187, passim. Among the examples that Stabile discusses: the disparity between coverage of the “Central Park jogger” case in 1989 and a similar crime involving a black woman that took place only weeks later (the news media largely ignored the latter case); two Associated Press photographs taken in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in which New Orleans residents waded through floodwaters carrying groceries—the captions described a black subject as having “looted” groceries and white subjects as having “found” groceries. See also: Newkirk, Within the Veil; Dennis Rome, Black Demons: The Media’s Depiction of the African American Male Criminal Stereotype (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004).

75 “The diary of a Green Haven inmate,” Poughkeepsie Journal, December 28, 1980.

76 Pierre Bowman, “Prison: telling it like it is,” Honolulu Advertiser, January 30, 1980.

77 R. H. Ring, “This ain’t that kind of prison,” Arizona Star, August 8, 1982.

78 Douglas Bauer, “It can be lonely on Christmas Eve at the Cardinal tavern in Prairie City,” Des Moines Register, December 23, 1979.

79 Tony Case, “Publishing profanities,” Editor & Publisher, November 6, 1993, 11–13.

80 Don Morrison, “A needle for your thoughts,” Minneapolis Star, September 2, 1971.

81 Christine Chapman, “Why they leave home: one runaway’s story,” Washington Post, January 11, 1976.

82 Bill McGraw, “Coleman Young in his own words,” Detroit Free Press, January 23, 1994.

83 For example: Ward Just, “The dead,” Potomac (Washington Post Sunday magazine), May 25, 1975; Myra MacPherson, “War’s legacy: an enduring conflict of contemporaries,” Boston Globe, July 3, 1984.

84 Joseph Alsop, “Uncle Sam’s Money’s Worth,” Washington Post, October 8, 1965.

85 Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 4th ed. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), 244.

86 Gypsy Hogan, “Covering the catastrophe,” Editor & Publisher, June 10, 1995, 15.

87 Robertson, “Language barriers.”

88 Howard Angione, ed., The Associated Press Style Book and Libel Manual, With Appendixes on Photo Captions and Filing the Wire (1977), 155. From Associated Press Collections Online.

89 Norm Goldstein, ed., Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, with Internet Guide and Glossary, 35th ed. (2000), 180. From Associated Press Collections Online.

90 “Obscenity,” Prose & Cons, September 15, 1981, from Associated Press Collections Online.

91 Shaw, “Why editors lean to dots, dashes, euphemisms.”

92 Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 5th ed. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2015), 229; Adam Offitzer, “Watch Your Language: Swearing in News Stories,” American Journalism Review online, April 4, 2014, http://ajr.org/2014/04/04/swear-words-news-stories/.

93 Michael Finnegan and Kurtis Lee, “Trump recorded bragging crudely of past sexual advances,” Los Angeles Times, October 8, 2016.

94 Nicholas Fandos, “Rashida Tlaib’s Expletive-Laden Cry to Impeach Trump Upends Democrats’ Talking Points,” New York Times, January 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/us/politics/tlaib-impeach-trump.html.

95 “Prudery.” AP Insider, vol. I, no. 1, May 1989; “Hell, Here We Go Again. AP Insider, vol. I, no. 2, June 1989. From Associated Press Collections Online.

96 “Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles,” available at https://www.ap.org/about/news-values-and-principles/downloads/ap-news-values-and-principles.pdf, accessed August 26, 2018.

97 Tom Kent, “When Vulgarity Becomes Part of the Story, What’s a News Agency To Do?” AP Definitive Source blog, March 7, 2016, https://blog.ap.org/behind-the-news/when-vulgarity-becomes-part-of-the-story.

98 John Daniszewski, “Why We Quoted the President’s Vulgarity,” AP Definitive Source blog, January 12, 2018, https://blog.ap.org/behind-the-news/why-we-quoted-the-presidents-vulgarity.

99 Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro, and Jonathan Lemire, “Democrats Take Power in House; Impeachment Talk Flares,” Associated Press, January 5, 2019, https://apnews.com/fbb205be041c47a69baf800f41edf3aa; Laurie Kellman, “New House Dems Get Early Political Lesson,” Associated Press, January 5, 2019, https://www.apnews.com/357fc04c8a4347d394d764cc74c4061a.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Pressman

Matthew Pressman is an assistant professor of journalism at Seton Hall University. He is the author of On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News (Harvard University Press, 2018).