The back story in the flap about whether to call the conflict in Iraq a civil war has nothing to do with President Bush or the Joint Chiefs. It’s really about the imprecise use of words by journalists—the very people who are thought of as careful wordsmiths.

In my 36 years in journalism, I rarely encountered a debate about the proper choice of words in stories, probably because more time generally is spent in gathering facts than in writing about them. Sure, headline words were carefully chosen most of the time. And the best editors carefully went over every word of investigative pieces (so did lawyers, who sometimes cared the most about the precision of words). But, day in and day out, I heard little talk about which words were the right ones to use.

In a review of The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Carl Sessions Stepp wrote in American Journalism Review:

“Language matters. Words are weapons of almost insurmountable power. It may be amusing to contemplate copy editors squared off over whether ‘contact’ can be a verb (it can, the new manual grudgingly decrees), but cumulatively such issues make a difference. Respect for the language shows respect for ideas. It shows seriousness of purpose. It builds credibility with audiences, who tend to equate care in language with care in fact and context as well.” 

Roy Peter Clark writing about the “civil war” debate, observed that “the responsible choice of words is one of the most important and common challenges in American politics and journalism.”

I agree with Roy that it’s one of the most important challenges—but the debate isn’t as common as it should be.