On Jan. 3, the Santa Barbara News-Press published a front page story about AB 60, a new law that gives undocumented immigrants the opportunity to obtain a valid ID and legally operate a car in the state.
The headline: “Illegals line up for driver’s licenses.”
Those six words didn’t sit well with Hispanics and others across the state, including Filibert Nolasco Gomez of the Oakland-based website chipsterlife.com.
The News-Press story reported on California DMV offices starting to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants as of Jan. 2, including at the new Lompoc facility that was built to alleviate the anticipated influx of applicants—estimated to be around 1.5 million in the initial years. AB 60 passed in 2013 and allows for undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses provided they are able to pass a written exam, and prove identity and residency.
The law has already made an immediate impact, with 970 applicants statewide receiving licenses on the first day, according to statistics released by the California DMV.
Media outlets in Santa Barbara County, including the Sun, picked up on how that change would impact immigrants in this county, many of whom come here from Mexico seeking seasonal farm labor.
Reached through his Twitter account, @chipsterlife, Gomez said the headline “does not follow AP standards and is offensive to the Latino community at large.” He started a petition at change.org, calling for the paper to retract its headline, describing it as “hateful and racist.”
As of the Sun’s press deadline, the petition had received more than 5,100 digital signatures, but it’s not clear what impact the virtual show of support will have on the News-Press.
The headline also caught the attention of Santa Barbara-based People Organizing for the Defense of Equal Rights of Santa Barbara Youth (PODER), which issued a press release Jan. 6 calling for a boycott of the News-Press unless the paper issues a correction and retraction. The group held a press conference on the evening of Jan. 8 at the De La Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara to protest the headline.
Several media organizations reported that hundreds of demonstrators showed up to the protest at the newspaper’s headquarters that Thursday night. On the morning of Jan. 9, the Santa Barbara Independent reported that the News-Press building’s exterior had been vandalized with paint splatters and graffiti on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, just ahead of the protests.
The Associated Press (AP) removed the term “illegal” from its stylebook—the journalism industry’s holy text on clarity and political correctness—two years ago. AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explained in a blog post published on her company’s website in April 2013 that the term was biased against the people it describes.
But the News-Press stands by its headline. The Sun reached out to that paper’s editorial staff by phone to find out if they planned on changing anything. News-Press Director of News Operations Don Katich said on Jan. 6 that he was aware of the petition, but he struck a less conciliatory tone in an email statement provided to the Sun: “It has been the practice for the past 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as ‘illegals’ regardless of their country of origin. This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of ‘undocumented immigrants,’ one of several terms other media use to describe people in the United States illegally. You have to look no further than the White House website to see the term ‘illegal’ used when describing the 2 million illegal immigrants President Obama has deported since taking office for being in the U.S. illegally.”
Katich also noted that the term is an appropriate way to describe someone who’s in the country illegally. The lead sentence in the article even referenced “illegal aliens,” as opposed to the AP’s now-recommended “undocumented immigrants.”
The News-Press has its supporters. In an op-ed column published in the Ventura County Citizens Journal on Jan. 9, author George Miller writes, “Although offensive to some, they were fact-based and a legal action of a free press.”
In his piece, Miller compared restricting language used for expression to 1984’s term of “Newspeak.”
But even if the headline is legally protected, people still find it offensive. Savannah Maya, a student at Santa Barbara City College and a member of PODER, was among those who organized the Jan. 8 protest. She believes the headline was unacceptable and argues that the newspaper describes the very people who eventually put money in the pockets of the staff members.
“The term is somewhat racist,” Maya said. “It’s perpetuating that these people who simply migrate are somehow criminals. A proper journalist would try to be as specific as possible. Being a media source, [Katich] should be open to change and responding to the community he’s writing for.”
And the News-Press isn’t alone when it comes to criticism. The Jan. 6 press release from PODER accused the Independent as well as KSBY of media bias, though Maya couldn’t provide any specific examples from those outlets. She did note that media outlets occasionally assume that some Hispanics who are depicted in the news for crimes are associated with gangs.
Katich said the outrage from immigration advocates should be directed toward the current immigration system, rather than the newspaper.
Contact Staff Writer David Minsky at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 15-22, 2015.