One after the other, a number of news organizations across Canada and the United States announced in June the same change in their language guidelines: to capitalize the word “Black” when referring to Black people and culture.
The Globe and Mail made its announcement on June 3, followed by the CBC on June 8 and The Canadian Press the next day.
In the U.S., a number of news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, NBC, The Associated Press and the New York Times, also announced the same change to their style guides.
The announcements by so many news organizations coincided with the massive Black Lives Matter protests across the United States and Canada that have led to widespread reflection about the impact of racism across society, including in policing, the justice system, education, politics and the press.
A Black Lives Matter protester at City Hall Park in New York. Activists and journalists of colour have been calling on news organizations to change the way they write about and report on Black communities for years, but it was the groundswell of protest in the wake of the killing of George Floyd that prompted change. (Yuki Iwamura/The Associated Press)
Journalism style guides are, by nature, rigid and slow to change, purposefully upholding established rules and conventions. But many activists, academics and journalists of colour say the language used by the news media to describe diverse communities is particularly slow to catch up because there’s a lack of diverse voices in news organizations responsible for making such decisions.
Slow change
In 1930, American activist W.E.B. Du Bois was successful in getting the New York Times to start writing the word “Negro” with a capital N.
He had been campaigning for the change since the 1920s. He called the use of a “small letter for the name of 12 million Americans and 200 million human beings a personal insult.”
Many Black people have been writing Black with a capital “B” since the 1960s, inspired by the Black Power movement started by civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael.
There have been calls for publications to follow suit for the past two decades.
The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May reinvigorated the Black Lives Matter movement not only in the U.S. but in more than 60 countries worldwide, including here in Canada.
A copy of the 17th edition of The Canadian Press Stylebook. The Canadian Press and a number of other news outlets in Canada and the U.S. recently changed their style and now capitalize the word ‘Black’ when referring to Black people and culture. (Kashmala Fida)
Newsrooms across North America are now taking a hard look at themselves, as journalists of colour, particularly Black journalists, point out the many ways in which news organizations have let them down.
And one of those ways has been through language.
Spelling “Black” with a capital “B” has been a common practice of publications that focus on the Black community, such as Essence and Ebony magazines, for example, for more than a decade. It is also offered as an option by Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.
Black writers and activists have long petitioned for the change in news copy.
James McCarten, stylebook editor at The Canadian Press, the authoritative guide for Canadian news writing and editing, said although the guide is the standard that news media follow, it does not set the course for changes in language.
“It does not chart the path; it follows the path that the users of the language are blazing,” he said.
The Canadian Press prefers not to rush into making changes to its style guide, he said, “for the simple reason that constantly changing a style essentially means you don’t have a style.”
He said The Canadian Press had to wait and see if “Black” with a capital “B” was consistently used before revising its rule.
“When you make a change, you can’t have to go back on it. You have to be sure that this is where the language is going to go, this is where the usage is going to go.”
At the CBC, the style guide says the lowercased version was based on a longstanding convention of using lowercase letters for “racial, ethnic and nationality labels not directly rooted in proper nouns. (e.g., African, European and Latino, but ‘black,’ ‘white’ and ‘brown’).”
The rationale to make the change was to “respect frequently voiced preferences of Black people” and “reflect increasingly common usage in Canada,” according to standards editor Blair Shewchuk.
The Globe and Mail gave a similar explanation in its public statement.
Lack of representation
Handel Wright, director of the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Culture, Identity and Education in Vancouver, said it helps if newsrooms listen to communities on how they would like to be represented, but it is even more important that members of those communities are actually part of newsrooms.
“Part of what needs to happen is that the media need to be more representative of the group that they’re speaking about. So … who is reporting about different groups makes a difference,” he said.
“I think it is reflective of the fact that maybe the media itself is not diverse enough that the media is always playing the catch-up game.”
The 2016 Canadian census found nearly a quarter of citizens identified as Black, Indigenous or a person of colour (BIPOC).
CBC/Radio-Canada tracks the diversity of its workforce with a voluntary survey. As of 2019, visible minorities made up 16.5 per cent of the workforce in English services and 6.5 per cent of the workforce in French services. Indigenous staff accounted for 3.6 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively. Among CBC/Radio-Canada executives, 4.1 per cent were visible minorities, and none were Indigenous.
The Globe and Mail did a voluntary survey in 2018 in which 60 per cent of staff participated. The results showed that 23 per cent of staff identified as visible minorities.
Maclean’s and the Toronto Star both changed their style to “Black” with a capital “B” before other Canadian outlets after columnists of colour in their newsrooms called for the change.
When Maclean’s did so in 2015, it was because of contributing editor Andray Domise.
Andray Domise, a contributing editor and columnist at Maclean’s magazine, is critical of how the news media covered the early protests that followed the police killing of Floyd in Minneapolis. (Andray Domise for Toronto City Council – Ward 2/Facebook)
Although glad to see the change, Domise nonetheless questions why it took Maclean’s so long to make it.
“Why wasn’t it a standard before I got there?” he said.
As for the outlets who made the same change last month, he questions the motives behind it.
“Why not before? What changed? What was the difference between then and now?” he said.
“Personally, I don’t think anything has changed except that we are seeing an uprising happening. To me, it’s almost an esthetic means of placating the masses, rather than engaging in substance of change.”
Anthony Collins, style chief for the Toronto Star, said the newspaper changed its spelling of “Black” in 2017 because Shree Paradkar, the paper’s race and gender columnist, explained why it was necessary.
He acknowledged that a lack of newsroom diversity helps explain why outlets are slow to respond to language changes that communities want to see in the media.
“I think there’s often a lot of uncertainty about what term to use and a lot of nervousness around using the wrong term, which, frankly, I think just comes from having a newsroom that’s not as diverse as it should be,” he said.
“I think the Star, you know, has a broad readership, and we serve a very diverse community. And I think if a community doesn’t see itself reflected in our stories, or misrepresented somehow, I think that’s incredibly injurious to public trust in our journalism.”
Describing communities appropriately
Despite the change to the word “Black” and other style guide adjustments, journalists of colour and activists agree that news organizations and journalists still have a long way to go when it comes to using the appropriate language to describe Indigenous and Black people and people of colour.
Another relatively recent language change at news organizations such as CBC, the Toronto Star and The Canadian Press includes encouraging journalists to specify, if possible, what Indigenous nation a person belongs to instead of just referring to them generically as Indigenous.
Rachel Decoste, a community activist in Ottawa, wants the news media to use the term ‘enslaved Africans’ instead of ‘slaves’ when discussing slavery. (Jean Delisle/CBC)
But Rachel Decoste, a community activist in Ottawa who had been advocating for the CBC to change its guideline on the word “Black” for years, says more changes are needed.
She also wants newsrooms to use the term “enslaved Africans” instead of “slaves” when discussing slavery. The change started in academic circles as a way to describe enslaved individuals as people first, commodities second.
“Now that we are writing ‘Black’ with a capital ‘B,’ perhaps our ancestors could also get the respect that they deserve,” Decoste said.
Beyond style guides
And although style and language guides might change, there are many other factors that go into telling a story.
For example, some of the early coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests in American and Canadian media was criticized for mirroring the language used in reporting on the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s, particularly in the way violence was often attributed to protesters rather than police.
Domise said some of the reporting following the killing of Floyd was quick to describe the protests as “violent” as soon as property damage was involved.
“No, the violence was already pre-existing,” he said of this type of coverage.
“The violence was what precipitated the protest in the first place. A police officer suffocated somebody to death in the middle of the street. You can see the anti-Blackness seeping out of the narrative.
“I was alive in the early 2000s, in the 1990s and 1980s, and nothing has changed in terms of the way the media writes about Black people. So, how far have we come along? We haven’t.”
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
