Labels, Images, and the News Media.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe
• Position: Brief Article

WE ARE A NATION obsessed with labels: right-wing, left-wing, liberal, conservative. Pity the poor individuals who are not a convenient fit. They usually end up ignored by the media and forgotten by the public. Journalists don't seem content to simply report an opinion or a position. It must be labeled. Editorial pages are filled with Column Left and Column Right. If you don't fit either category, you join the ranks of the fence-sitter, indecisive and suspect.

Many believe that labels may be annoying shorthand, but not all that serious. There are notable exceptions. A label may be so offensive that just using it can be cause for legal action. Calling someone a killer, an arsonist, a crook, a rapist, or a child molester can get any medium in trouble unless there is proof or a conviction to back up the label. To protect themselves, journalists hide behind the A-word--alleged. If the media call someone an alleged killer, the legal issue is neatly skirted. An alleged child molester is someone who is accused of being a child molester, but not convicted. Or an alleged child molester might be a suspect in a child molestation case. No proof is needed as long as the word "alleged" is thrown into the sentence. Yet, persons labeled alleged child molesters, even when later judged innocent in court, discover that the label has destroyed their lives.

False titles are another form of false labeling. A title should be a formal appellation attached to a person or family by virtue of office, rank, hereditary privilege, noble birth, attainment, or as a mark of respect. But the news media insist on labeling occupations by putting them before names--tycoon Howard Hughes or movie mogul Sam Goldwyn or media baron Rupert Murdoch or plumber Bill Jones. In a democracy, casual titles are given out freely by the news media, as are descriptive titles or nicknames--the Sultan of Swat, Big Mac, the King of Swing, Wrong-Way Corrigan, the World's Princess. Most of them are affectionate, but when they turn ugly, they can create an image that sticks with people and makes them something they are not.

One such label is Abortion Doctor. The headline, "Abortion Doctor Killed by Sniper in Upstate N.Y.," labels that physician as someone who did nothing else but abortions, and in today's society, where many consider abortion a crime or murder, it is an appellation that has extremely negative connotations. It turned out that the murdered Buffalo, N.Y., physician, Barnett Slepian, was...