Darts, laurels on use of ‘people-first’ language in coverage

Pope Benedict XVI blessed a group of children with disabilities on a visit to Yonkers yesterday. From www.catholic.org:

God has blessed you with life, and with differing talents and gifts. Through these you are able to serve him and society in various ways. While some people’s contributions seem great and others’ more modest, the witness value of our efforts is always a sign of hope for everyone.

Sometimes it is challenging to find a reason for what appears only as a difficulty to be overcome or even pain to be endured. Yet our faith helps us to break open the horizon beyond our own selves in order to see life as God does. God’s unconditional love, which bathes every human individual, points to a meaning and purpose for all human life. Through his Cross, Jesus in fact draws us into his saving love and in so doing shows us the way ahead — the way of hope which transfigures us all, so that we too, become bearers of that hope and charity for others.

The full text of his remarks.

Here’s a rundown on the use of people-first language (or not) in media coverage of the meeting.

Laurels go to Newsday, which said the Pope met with “young people with disabilities,” the Washington Post (”children with disabilities”) and the Associated Press (”youngsters with disabilities”).

Double darts go to the Newark Star-Ledger for using the term ‘disabled children’ in a headline on a story that also used the term “profoundly disabled children.” The New York Times gets a single dart for a story that said the Pope was meeting with “disabled children,” as does Catholic New Service, which led with a reference to “disabled youth.”

Both a dart and a laurel go to CNN. Their Sunday morning coverage carried a tagline about “disabled children” (no video available), but the web print version says “children with disabilities.”

More sightings, anyone?

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 6:28 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, language, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post