Why’d You Do That? Printing Donald Trump’s Vulgarities
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Version 0 of 1. Coverage of the leaked 2005 audio tape of Donald Trump speaking in lewd language about women has produced an onslaught of reader mail, mostly because of the vile words contained in the coverage. The majority of those writing in are asking how the decision was made rather than complaining about the choice to include such words. I went to the Times political editor Carolyn Ryan to ask some of the readers’ most frequent questions. Spayd: The public editor inbox is full of readers asking why The New York Times decided to use some of the most vile language spoken by Donald Trump in the audio released Friday. The words were used both on the home page and on A1. Can you explain the thinking behind this decision? Ryan: Yes, it is not a decision we made lightly. We had a spirited discussion among top editors about it, led by (executive editor) Dean Baquet. The argument against using the words was driven by a concern that it would be jolting to readers, especially given that the story would be played so prominently on page one, and that there were other ways we could signal what Trump said without relying on the actual vulgar words. Ultimately we decided that the words themselves were newsworthy, and that omitting them or merely describing them or slyly hinting at them would not have been forthright with our readers. Spayd: Has The Times ever used such vulgar language in such a prominent position before, or in any manner? Ryan: It is very rare, but we have done it in the past. One recent example: In 2013, Andrea Elliott wrote a powerful narrative about an 11-year-old homeless girl growing up in New York City, which captured how rough and desolate her life was. We quoted her mother cursing at her, which was in keeping with the rawness and roughness of the narrative. But again, it is quite rare. Spayd: In this case, the words appear both in print and online. Was it part of the discussion to consider using the words only online or is the standard the same for both? Ryan: We proceeded with the idea that whatever we decided would be applied to the print and the online story. One reality we faced was that, regardless of what we said in the story, we were going to run the video without editing it. So it seemed to us it would be especially awkward to run the video, in full, and then omit the vulgarities in the story. Spayd: Finally, several readers asked why The Times didn’t characterize Trump’s words as bragging about sexually assaulting women rather than just groping them, at least in initial coverage. What was the thinking about that? Ryan: This is a really important point and one that we tried to highlight — I think the first version of the story described Trump as “pushing himself on women,” but also included a quote from Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, saying bluntly that this was sexual assault. Since the news of the tape broke, our stories have become more explicit in calling what Mr. Trump is boasting about “sexual assault.” *** Here’s my view. It should be the extraordinary case when such words are used by The Times, but this is one of those cases. Trump is the Republican nominee for the president of the United States. He alleges to have sexually assaulted women, and the words used in this tape are propelling many members of his own party to abandon him, or at least to publicly condemn him. In all their vulgarity, these words could turn the election. |