Press Club – Watch Your Language: Navigating Linguistic Taboos in Today’s News Media
Our understanding of the world is heavily influenced by the words journalists use, and don’t use, in their reporting. Because of this influence, the language of journalists is often contested. Media organizations routinely face calls to update their language guides to be more inclusive or redress historical wrongs. These changes are seen by some as essential, and by others as unnecessary language policing. Why are some words capitalized, and others not? Why are some phrases, long thought innocuous by mainstream society, suddenly considered harmful? Whose perspectives should we prioritize when we lay down new rules about the words we use?
On March 24, join Denise Balkissoon, Ontario bureau chief of The Narwhal, James McCarten, editor of The Canadian Press Style Guide, and Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick as they discuss the evolving language norms in Canadian media. The event will be moderated by William Southam Journalism Fellow Michael Barclay.
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Speakers
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Michael BarclayJournalism Fellow Alum; author, music historian and journalistMichael Barclay is the author of the acclaimed 2018 national bestseller The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip, and co-author of Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-95 (2001; rev. 2011). He was chief copy editor at Maclean’s from 2008 to 2017, associate producer at CBC Radio Two’s Brave New Waves (2003-06), and a freelance writer for the Globe and Mail, New York Times, Exclaim, Eye Weekly and others. For almost 20 years, he had a weekly column in the Waterloo Region Record. His latest book, Hearts on Fire: Five Years That Changed Canadian Music 2000-05, was published in early 2022. He plays accordion and saxophone in rock, folk, wedding and klezmer bands. Michael was a 2021-2022 William Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College.
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Denise Balkissoon
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James McCarten
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Heather Mallick
