9 AP style and precise (and fair) language

Avoiding conflicts of interest and (in many cases) talking to people on both sides of an issue are ways journalists remain independent and avoid misinformation. As we’ve established, legitimate journalists work hard to accurately provide information.

Even the appearance of a conflict can causes readers to question the validity of a story. That’s why, for example, when a source happens to have the same name as the reporter, stories will note the two are not related.

For example, when The Fresno Bee’s Lewis Griswold reported on a county jail inmate named Duane Griswold, the reporter included this sentence: “Griswold (no relation to the reporter) was employed as a radiologist in Visalia for several years.”

Avoiding conflicts of interest is also a way journalists convey to their readers their attempts to be objective. Once widely accepted as a standard practice of journalists, readers and journalists now debate whether human beings can truly be objective.

If being objective means having no prejudices or biases, then no, it’s not humanly possible. But even if a journalist concludes he or she can’t be objective, there are still tactics and approaches that can make stories fairer. Precise and accurate word usage is one of those things. The good news is, there’s a guide for doing this.

The Associated Press Stylebook is sometimes called “the journalist’s Bible,” and journalists are supposed to read it, follow its tenets, and never stray from it. (At least as much as humanly possible.) The stylebook offers guidelines on lots of helpful language issues with hundreds of style rules, and the book grows and changes almost every day.

The category of rules that help avoid misinformation are the rules for precision.

Guidelines for precision. Precision in language is closely related to important journalism concepts of fairness, balance and accuracy. These are all cousins of objectivity. But while objectivity is a concept that is more aspirational than attainable, precision is much more concrete. As we all know, language can be manipulated in ways to say or imply things that might or might not be accurate. The best way to illustrate this is to show examples.

• College-aged people are men and women, not boys or girls. The only exception is the rare case when a college student is 17 or younger. Always use man or woman to refer to individuals 18 and older. That means, never, ever refer to a college student as a sorority girl or as a member of the girls’ or boys’ team unless it’s in a quote.
• Don’t label a person as alien or an illegal, and don’t call groups of people illegals or undocumented. People are not illegal. Only their actions can be. Acceptable: living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.
• Don’t describe people in a way that assumes white is the default.
• Do not use Black or white as a singular noun when referring to people. Black people, white people, Black students, white teachers, etc., is preferable when relevant.
• Use Negro and Colored only in the official titles of organizations and in quotations.
• Be careful with the term people of color because people of various races object to the terms like this that lump them together into one monolithic group.
• The terms anti-abortion or abortion-rights are OK, but don’t use pro-life, pro-choice or pro-abortion unless in quotes.
• Avoid words that are disparaging of Native Americans such as wampum, warpath, powwow, teepee, brave, squaw, etc.
• Avoid expressions such as She is a stroke victim. Instead say: She had a stroke. Be similarly precise by describing how a player injured her knee (a meniscus tear, for example) rather than using trite phrases like “tweaked her knee” or vague phrases such as “knee injury.”
• Regarding courts and trials, use not guilty rather than innocent. Even better: the defendant was acquitted of criminal charges. Be very careful with the word murder. A victim can only be referred to as murdered after a court conviction.
• Similarly, a defendant can’t be said to have killed, bribed or lied under oath — or committed any other crime — before being convicted by a judge or jury. So, before trials, use indicted on a charge of killing or indicted on a bribery charge.
• A duel can only involve two people.
• Although the words ravish and ravage connote violence, their meanings are not the same. As the stylebook points out, buildings and towns cannot be ravished.
• Some titles are proper nouns and others are simply descriptions. Lowercase titles that are descriptive like student Herbert Jones. Some people are surprised at this example: former first lady Jill Biden.
• Refer to people as transgender only if it’s pertinent to the story. Amber is a transgender woman. Eli is transgender.

This is just the tip of the style iceberg. For more, The Associated Press provides both printed and online editions of its stylebook. The online version is found at Associated Press Stylebook. You can also follow @APStylebook on Instagram and X.