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In News Tribune Country, we pay attention to language

DAVID ZEECK; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: April 27th, 2008 01:00 AM

When I saw the page proof for today’s Page 1, I was reminded of a recent
e-mail exchange I’d had with a reader.

The page proof used the term Indian Country, which recalled the thoughtful
e-mail that began that previous correspondence.

“I find it astonishing that you would allow your editors, reporters and
writers to use the seriously out-dated term ‘American Indian’ versus
‘Native American,’” he said, referring to a story in mid-April about
Nisqually Tribe members teaching tribal songs and dances to public school
students.

“We don’t see headlines saying Barack Obama attended a ‘colored’ or ‘Negro’
church,” he continued. “American Indian was considered old and even
insulting as far back as the ’80s. A change would help the News Tribune
seem more modern and in touch.”

The writer said he has a friend who’s a member of a Northwest tribe. He
said that although she wasn’t offended at the term American Indian she
thought most members of her tribe would be.

We use the term American Indian for several reasons. One, it’s what the
federal government uses (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example) and
it’s the legal term used in most treaties and contracts.

Two, it’s what The Associated Press Stylebook (the Bible for language usage
by most of the news media) uses. The stylebook also allows use of the term
Native American when used by a speaker or in the name of an organization.
Most all news copy comes to us using American Indian.

There’s also common usage. The Smithsonian named its relatively new museum
the National Museum of the American Indian. Russell Means, the famous
Indian activist, has been quoted as saying he prefers the term Indian and
abhors the term Native American.

Means is not alone. A Census Bureau survey (1995) showed more Indians
preferred the term Indian (50 percent) to Native American (37 percent). And
journalist Charles C. Mann noted in the appendix to his 2005 best-seller,
“1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,” that virtually all
the native people he met in researching the book referred to themselves as
Indians.

My correspondent friend suggested that the best remedy to any controversy
would be to acknowledge people by their tribe, and avoid other terms.
Perhaps he’s right.

But I also wanted other readers to know that we don’t choose our language
casually, or with indifference to offense. We’re trying, even if we’re
imperfect.

LOOKING FOR A BRAME STORY?

Saturday marked the fifth anniversary of the day Tacoma Police Chief David
Brame fatally wounded his wife, Crystal Judson Brame, and then shot and
killed himself.

We keep calendars in the newsroom to remind us of the anniversaries of
momentous local events. Things like the eruption of Mount St. Helens, or –
this year – the 125th anniversary of the founding of the daily papers that
became, over the years, The News Tribune.

We asked ourselves, looking back at the shootings, how we wanted to mark
that date. I think it’s the most-covered story in my 14 years at the TNT.
Our archive shows 972 stories with the name David Brame in them. There are
391 that mention Crystal Brame (another 66 refer to Crystal Judson).

Of course, there’s some overlap, and we did stories about David Brame
before he shot and killed his wife. But however one measures it, that’s a
lot of stories.

Maybe that’s enough. Karen Peterson, the managing editor; Randy McCarthy,
our crime, courts and breaking-news editor; and I decided not to go out of
our way to revisit that day or those events.

We still covered the related news. There was a fundraising barbecue Friday
for the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center. There was a candlelight vigil
for Crystal on Saturday.

We decided to otherwise let everyone rest in peace this weekend.

MIXED-UP TV LISTINGS

The news service that provides the listings for our Sunday TV guide mixed
up its dates and gave us the wrong programs for today’s prime-time grid.

We noticed that error after the TV book had been printed, however. So we
reprinted the correct grid inside the SoundLife section today, on Page E7.

Sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused.

Dave Zeeck: 253-597-8434

david.zeeck@...