Scarlet letter or broken record? Tennessean and Scene use different labels in stories on Mercedes Gonzalez

Defining the person by a label

Photo by Bill H-D. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Mercedes Gonzalez has been in the local news a couple of times recently. Last week, Mercedes was the subject of a story about 287(g) in the weekly alternative paper Nashville Scene.  Today, Mercedes was the subject of a story about the DREAM Act in the daily, Gannett-owned Tennessean.

Despite Mercedes being a common subject in both stories, the vocabulary of the stories was different.

Specifically, the two reporters writing the stories employed law-driven labels differently.  On the one hand, the reporter for the weekly Scene drew from a variety of nouns, adjectives, and phrases (see "Law-driven labels" below).  The reporter for the daily Tennessean, however, exclusively used labels containing one of the following two words: "illegal" and "undocumented."  While I appreciate that the Gannett paper (or its reporter) preferred "undocumented" to "illegal," the idea that it only had two vocabulary words at its disposal for law-driven labels is fairly unheard of in journalism, except, sadly, when it comes to immigration.  In fact, repeated use of any law-driven label, regardless of word choice, is uncommon except on the immigration beat. 

Here's how journalists tend to diverge from common practices when they report about the border or the people on the wrong side of the immigration bureaucracy:

First, in reporting about laws outside the context of immigration, American journalists frequently employ few labels of people at all.  The law-tinged adjectives and nouns in those stories mostly refer to the law itself, or the violation, or the conduct, but not the people.  The Tennessean itself has reported on laws with scant use of law-related people labels - see an example here in regard to business taxes. But when it comes to immigration, law-related labels of people are used heavily, almost exclusively.  Note that both the Scene and the Tennessean use law-driven labels in their stories about Mercedes, even though (as noted above, and this is my main point) the Scene avoids the repetitive and exclusive use of the labels "illegal" and "undocumented".

Second, another common practice of professional journalists (in law-related stories and otherwise) is, if they're going to label people at all, to label then in ways unrelated to the law.  Here, in the two stories featuring Mercedes, at least both papers followed common practice and employed a fair amount of non-law labels of the people in the story (see "Non-law labels", also below).  In many other immigration stories in modern journalism, however, every time the person in the story is referenced will be with a law-driven label, which is contrary to common journalism practice in other legal contexts.

The broader point is not that problems with immigration status should be covered differently than other legal problems, or reported with kid gloves.  It's that the people and the issues of immigration should be described in the same way as any other legal story is reported.

Below are the people labels used by each paper in these two most recent stories.  The Tennessean's law-driven labels stand out.

August 7, 2011 story		August 4, 2011 story
Law-driven labels undocumented Tennesseans illegal immigrants undocumented students undocumented students undocumented students undocumented students undocumented students undocumented students undocumented young people undocumented immigrant America's illegal children* undocumented students* undocumented* undocumented* undocumented students* undocumented students* undocumented* *headline, photo caption, or sidebar		Law-driven labels young people brought into the country without documentation undocumented immigrants those in the 287(g) population arrestees flagged by the sheriff's office for deportation low-level offenders dangerous criminals inmates processed for deportation those whom officers suspect to be undocumented those who don't have a driver's license undocumented
Non-law labels Carlos Zazaleta 10-year-old high school graduates children kids Zazaleta a census worker in Mexico a cook Riccy (pronounced RICK-see) Arita mother’s and daughter’s older brother roofer high-school junior children students students students Overton High graduate Mercedes Gonzalez, 18 Gonzalez Nashville immigrants* Overton High graduate Mercedes Gonzalez* Gonzalez* Carlos Zazaleta* Riccy Arita* Hillwood High graduate* Nashville students*		Non-law labels Mercedes Gonzalez the 18-year-old the teen Gonzalez Gonzalez a high school graduate Gonzalez Gonzalez kids and young adults who graduate from American high schools kids and young adults those who came to the U.S. before age 16 and have a high school diploma or its equivalent applicants Gonzalez Gonzalez Gonzalez Gonzalez 18-year-olds Gonzalez Gonzalez Gonzalez's Gonzalez the teen Gonzalez Gonzalez Gonzalez Gonzalez Manolo Lem a man of Chinese descent MTSU grad Mercedes Gonzalez*
*headline, photo caption, or sidebar