MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Immigration is always in the news. Late last week, President Biden extended temporary protected status for folks from Venezuela, El Salvador and Ukraine. And incoming President Trump has vowed to implement mass deportations, among other things. Just as the stories are ever-evolving, so, too, is the language we use to talk about them. NPR recently changed its guidance on how we reporters talk about this issue on our air and in pieces for our website. Tony Cavin is NPR's managing editor of standards and practices, and he is here now to walk us through some of the new guidance. Hi, Tony.
TONY CAVIN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So I want to share with everybody the lead of the email that you sent to all staff - landed in my inbox this morning. It begins, quote, "when referring to people who are in the United States without the government's permission, going forward, we should use the term people who are in the United States without legal status," end quote. Tony Cavin, what's the thinking here?
CAVIN: Well, two things. I noticed that our own guidance was contradictory about the use of the term undocumented, both approving it and not approving it. I just think something didn't get updated, so I knew it was time to do something. And I also noticed that the Associated Press had stopped using undocumented as a description for people who are here without the government's permission. Many of the people do have documents. They don't just - they don't have the right documents. The trick here is finding language that is both clear, that doesn't dehumanize the people we're talking about and makes the point in as exact a way as possible, and we're not somehow coloring the debate by the language that we use.
KELLY: I want to talk about one other term that has been used in our coverage. Plenty of news organizations have used in past illegal immigrants. And for people listening who may be scratching their heads and thinking, OK, but there are folks who come to the U.S. illegally, your note says, NPR journalists, we can use the term - can use the term illegal immigration, not illegal immigrants. The distinction being what?
CAVIN: That people are not illegal. Someone can do something that's illegal, but they are not, in and of themselves, illegal.
KELLY: OK.
CAVIN: So we don't want to do that.
KELLY: This is trying to center just basic humanity in our coverage of the people that...
CAVIN: Exactly.
KELLY: ...We're writing about?
CAVIN: You know, I also mentioned in the same note that - but we try not to use terminology that talks about national phenomena - when we're in a flood of immigrants or waves of immigrants - just because you lose the humanity. Each one of these people who comes to this country, no matter whether they entered legally or illegal, there's a story behind it. There's an individual story. Our job is to try and get as close to those stories as possible.
KELLY: That gets to a kind of golden rule of thumb in journalism, which is generally better to use a description than a label. Give us an example or two that come to mind here.
CAVIN: Well, for example, we should say someone had crossed the border without permission or he stayed in the U.S. after his tourist visa expired. It really varies on the individual, but to the extent we can describe a situation, it's always better than labeling that situation, and as you note, that's not exclusive to immigration. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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