Volume 37, No. 2, Spring 2020
Mathew Pressman is an assistant professor in the College of Communications and Arts at Seton Hall University. In an interview with Editorial Assistant Ashley Walter, he discusses how press standards on publishing profanity have changed from the 1960s to today.
How did you become interested in researching the use of profanity in the press?
My interest grew out of the research I did for my dissertation and book, which focused on the changing values and practices of the press during the 1960s and 70s. In the archives—the company records of the New York Times and the L.A. Times, in particular—I came across lots of material about profanity and policies on ads for porno movies. It fascinated me, but I couldn’t fit it into the book, so I decided to do a deeper dive for a journal article.
Also, on a personal level, when the Starr Report came out I was a teenager, and I distinctly remember standing in my parents’ dining room reading the text of the report in the Boston Globe and getting a sort of illicit thrill that a serious newspaper would publish this sexually explicit stuff. I was intrigued back then, and still am, about these societal taboos and how they get broken.
What surprised you in researching this subject?
When I started searching for instances of profanity published in historical newspapers, I had no real hypothesis about what I would find. What surprised me the most was how neatly just about every use of profanity fit into one of four categories (the categories I describe in the article abstract).
What does the increased use of profanity tells us about the historical development of the news media in the last five decades?
I think it tells us that the news media—or at least established, mainstream, mass-audience news outlets—generally follows the prevailing trends in society. It’s rarely out in front. To use a metaphor that I often urge my students to think about, the news media in this case functions more as a mirror than as a lamp. It’s reflecting the attitudes (or perceived attitudes) of its audience.
This work no doubt sets the record for the number of profane words used in an American Journalism article. Did you have any reservations about using such language?
I am honored to be the record holder, even if it is a bit of a dubious distinction! I had no reservations about using profane language, because I’m not doing it gratuitously. I think tiptoeing around explicit language gives it a kind of mystique and power that it doesn’t deserve. Writing frankly and matter-of-factly about such language helps to demystify it and rob it of that power—at least I hope it does.
Do you think media historians — or scholars in general — should stop using euphemisms when quoting their subjects?
Definitely. When writing for an adult audience, there is almost never a compelling reason to use a euphemism or redaction or a write-around in place of the actual letters of the actual words that someone said or wrote. I think that goes for news outlets as well as for scholars, but scholars in particular are expected to grapple with weighty and sometimes disturbing material, so they should not need to be sheltered from offensive words.
What are good sources for learning more about this subject?
There aren’t many works devoted specifically to the topic of profanity in newspapers (that’s one of the main reasons I wrote this article!), but David Shaw, the late great media critic for the L.A. Times, wrote a terrific piece (which I cited) in 1991. For those who have access to old L.A. Times content via ProQuest, LexisNexis, or other databases, it was headlined “Why most editors lean to dashes, dots, euphemisms,” and published on August 19, 1991. I also quote from a fascinating piece by Lori Robertson in the November 2000 issue of the now-defunct (sadly) American Journalism Review, titled “Language Barriers.”
On the topic of profanity more generally, Melissa Mohr’s 2013 book Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing (that’s the actual title, I’m not redacting the word!) is hugely informative and engaging. And on the changing standards and practices of newspapers in the 1960s and 70s more generally, I would very immodestly recommend my own book, On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News (2018)!
Link to Pressman’s article here: “Guttural Phrases” and “Vulgar Directives”: The Evolution of Press Standards on Profanity