December 06, 2012 09:35 PM UTC

Post's style guide on usage of the phrase "illegal immigrant" raises questions

• 6 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

As an addendum to a shrill column by Ruben Navarette arguing that the term “illegal immigrant” should not be replaced by a phrase like “undocumented worker,”  The Denver Post Perspective section published The Post’s guidelines on how Post journalists should use the terms.

Unfortunately, the explanation apparantly only appeared in the print edition.

I was going to ask The Post to put it online, and I’m thinking its omission from the website was just an oversight, but before I did, I thought I’d put it out there for people to see. You can see it on Bigmedia.org here.

My question for The Post, which argues for the use of the term “illegal immigrant” to describe people without documentation, is this: what constitutes sufficient proof that an individual doesn’t have proper documentation?

If someone admits not having proper documentation? If immigration officials or police make this determination? If someone can’t produce documentation immediately? What’s the evidentiary standard?

It’s one thing to label the group of people who are presumably in the United States illegally as “illegal immigrants,” but it’s another to presume any single individual is an “illegal immigrant.”

Last year, Post City Editor Dana Coffield told me that The Post only refers to someone’s immigration status “when it becomes part of and material to the public record”–unlike talk-radio host Peter Boyles who dehumanizes himself and all of us by implying or asserting that someone with a Spanish surname is an “illegal.”

Anyway, I’ll ask The Post my question about its style guide next week, and I’ll include a few of the best questions from my readers, if you have any. Shoot them my way, if you do to tips@bigmedia.org.

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