NYT editor critical of paper’s use of language on disability
January 7th, 2009Philip B. Corbett, the deputy news editor who oversees the New York Times style manual, writes that the Times could do better at using words like “disabled,” “blind” or “deaf” as modifiers, rather than nouns. He cites recent examples of stories in which the newspaper used constructions like “the blind” and “the disabled.”
The difference between “the disabled” and “disabled people” (or “people with disabilities”) is subtle but significant. The shorthand might occasionally be unavoidable – in tight headlines, for example. But it’s better to refer to people who, among other characteristics, have some disability, rather than to use the disability as the sole label.
Some advocates, in fact, object to any phrase that refers to the disability before the person. They would uniformly use “people who are blind” rather than “blind people,” or “a person with a disability” rather than “a disabled person.”
Such alternatives may not always be feasible – they are wordier and may be awkward at times. But the point is clear, and important. A person with a disability is a person, first of all, with many characteristics beyond the disability.
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January 8th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Mr. Corbett is correct. Words and language matter. If we use language that makes a characteristic, including a disability, more prominent than the fact that a person is a person, we are implying that the characertistic is more important than personhood. We are all more alike than different. We should therefore emphasize how we are alike — personhood — before we address differences.