Next Up for AP Stylebook Change: "Right-Wing Extremist"?

    The Associated Press's announcement that its famed stylebook would no longer include "illegal immigrant" created quite a stir.  The news organization's Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll gave some of the reasoning behind the change:

Also, we had in other areas been ridding the Stylebook of labels. The new section on mental health issues argues for using credibly sourced diagnoses instead of labels. Saying someone was “diagnosed with schizophrenia” instead of schizophrenic, for example. 

And that discussion about labeling people, instead of behavior, led us back to “illegal immigrant” again. 

We concluded that to be consistent, we needed to change our guidance. 

So we have.

    Carroll went on to acknowledge that the change will likely spur talk of other changes that might be warranted:

I suspect now we will hear from some language lovers who will find other labels in the AP Stylebook. We welcome that engagement.

    Out of curiosity, I conducted a search of the AP's website for the term "right-wing extremist." The Google search returned 33 results with a total of 67 when duplicates were included.  On the other hand, a similar search for "left-wing extremist" returned precisely zero results.  Searches for the terms "right-wing" and "left-wing" returned 11,100 and 10,100 results respectively, so the difference lies not in the existence of the wings, but rather the purported extremism on the right.

    Since the AP encouraged engagement on the issue, I emailed the following question along with the search results: "If there is no such thing as a 'left-wing extremist' (or at least they do nothing newsworthy,) doesn’t that call into question the value of the label 'right-wing extremist'?" As of this writing, I have not received a response.  I'll post an update if/when I hear anything.  Until then, all you right-wing extremists are just going to have to be patient.  Try to stay out of the news.

Insourcing Outsourcing

    For those of you who like your irony sliced thick, this is a real treat.  Thursday, President Obama gave a much-maligned 54 minute speech on the economy in which he mentioned the word "job" or "jobs" 38 times, including several times in the following excerpts:

This is the vision behind the jobs plan I sent Congress back in September -- a bill filled with bipartisan ideas that, according to independent economists, would create up to 1 million additional jobs if passed today...

My plan to reform the tax code recognizes that government can’t bring back every job that’s been outsourced or every factory that’s closed its doors.  But we sure can stop giving tax breaks to businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America -- in Ohio, in Cleveland, in Pennsylvania...

It’s hard not to get cynical when times are tough.  And I’m reminded every day of just how tough things are for too many Americans.  Every day I hear from folks who are out of work or have lost their home.  

When the president speaks of his "plan to reform the tax code" in the 2nd paragraph above, he's referencing his Congress To-Do List which includes the president's top five priorities for Congress (if you don't count his Don't-double-my-rate proposal for student loans about which he tweeted on June 7th:  “The No. 1 thing Congress should do right now is to stop student loan interest rates from doubling at the end of the month.") The very first item on the To-Do list is "Reward American Jobs, Not Outsourcing":

Pass legislation to attract and keep good jobs in the United States by rewarding companies who bring jobs back to America with lower taxes and pay for it by eliminating tax incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas.

Now for the irony.  The day after giving the "I know there aren't enough jobs being created" speech, the President immediately skipped over the five items on his Congress To-Do list and announced a policy change on the treatment of certain illegal immigrants:

In an election-year policy change, the Obama administration said Friday it will stop deporting young illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children if they meet certain requirements... 

Under the new policy, people younger than 30 who came to the United States before the age of 16, pose no criminal or security threat, and were successful students or served in the military can get a two-year deferral from deportation, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

It also will allow those meeting the requirements to apply for work permits, Napolitano said, adding that participants must be in the United States now and be able to prove they have been living in the country continuously for at least five years...

Friday's policy change is expected to potentially affect 800,000 people, an administration official told CNN on background. 

While calling on Congress to reward employers for not outsourcing American jobs, the president effectively outsourced up to 800,000 jobs to non-citizens.  While an argument can be made that immigration, even this action, in the long run will be good for the economy, that is not what the president had in mind with this policy that directly contradicts a position he took in March 2011.   As even CNN had to acknowledge in the opening sentence of their story, this was political election year pandering and nothing more.