Loaded Language in Media Guide*
*© Copyright 2025 Natasha Senjanovic (All Rights Reserved)
What follows is part of a growing guide I began during a recent residency at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. Please contact me at natasha@wlspod.com:
for the full guide (with entries/definitions/explanations of included terms)
to suggest a new word/term (this guide is far from exhaustive)
to schedule a class visit, workshop or discussion at your university, school, workplace and beyond.
INTRODUCTION
Words can be weaponized, sometimes intentionally, most often inadvertently. As journalists we must therefore question the very language we use, to fight our greatest professional enemies: personal ignorance and unconscious bias. When we know a group or issue well, we describe it with nuance and depth. When we don’t, we tend to treat the facts superficially and the people monolithically, as if they were interchangeable.
For instance: US newsrooms rarely (never?) lump together Mormons and Catholics under a single Christian community umbrella, so why do we frequently see the denomination-less Muslim community?
This is just one example of unconscious biases, which do not make us bad people – they makes us human. We’re all products of the stories that explain, rationalize or mythologize the tiny spot we popped up in – in an immense and varied world.
These stories are shaped by power, which dictates social norms, names things and ‘others’ those who stand outside its circles; the most immediate measure of this is language. To question language is the essence of holding power to account, which is our duty as journalists, along with understanding that social evolution is the changing of the stories we tell ourselves…about ourselves.
Of course, we need specific words to describe specific people and experiences, but too often a label/term/word cannot cross gender, cultural, racial, ethnic, ability and other lines because it is “loaded” — biased, insulting or exclusionary. Or all three.
Some of the terms below may seem innocuous but are steeped in unquestioned social conditioning. This guide is by no means exhaustive and I invite journalists, students and others to add to it, and to discuss it without judgment, because none of us can pass a purity test. Nevertheless, in a field that requires us to pivot on a dime (sometimes hourly), journalists must be quicker that most to absorb and use new information.
Some terms are obvious, like sissy, used to insult males with “unmanly” traits, whose very definitions are mutable. Not long ago, men who wore tights, heels and powdered their faces were the most powerful humans on the planet: yesterday’s actual kings may resemble some of today’s “queens,” but how we report on them does not.
Other terms may surprise you, such as women and minorities – which literally means everyone in the West, where men are a minority. If the term is a passive way of saying “anyone who’s not a white man,” how would a story change if that proactive description was used instead? Does the thought of that make you uncomfortable?
It might, yet as journalists – whether covering the arts or criminal justice, breaking news or sports – it’s our job to challenge assumptions and biases, starting with our own. Specificity is our best tool for that. It builds accuracy, which should be the guiding principle of all our work, as opposed to objectivity, which isn’t dead as some argue, because it was never alive to begin with.
When we’re accurate, we help dismantle incorrect, outdated and/or damaging stereotypes and unquestioned power imbalances. And that helps us better serve the public and minimize harm.
LOADED LANGUAGE IN MEDIA GUIDE©
*Words/terms submitted by students
Abusive relationship
*Addict
*Alien
Alpha male
*Asylum seeker (vs. refugee)
Blindsided, blind spot, double-blind, etc.
*Bipolar
Bitch / nag (as verbs)
*Bogan (Australian slang)
Broken family / Broken home
Child pornography
Community
Commit suicide
Confined to a wheelchair / wheelchair-bound
Cougar
*Crazy
Crippled / crippling
*Crutch
Diversity fellowship / internship / hire
Eloquent
Exotic
Ex-patriate / ex-pat
Freshman/men
*Fresh off the boat
Friend zone
Gay lifestyle
*Hoe
Homeless
Homosexuality and Hysteria (as “diseases”)
Illegal immigrant
*Insane
Jewish Christmas
*Karen
*Kid / Boy / Girl
Lame
*Like a girl
”Losing” virginity
*Maneater
Mankind (vs. humankind)
Manned / Manpower
Manmade
MOS (Man on the street)
Master bedroom
*Mentally ill
Monster
Muslim country
*No offense
*OCD
OK Boomer
On the spectrum
*Owner (for sports teams)
Panic attack
Peasant
Plantation (vs. forced labor camp)
*Poor (vs. economically or financially vulnerable, or disenfranchised)
Premarital sex
*Pro-life (vs. Anti-abortion)
Promiscuous
*Prostitute
*Queer
Race / Racism (within the context of there being only one human race)
Racism vs. white supremacy (in countries where white people hold power)
Redneck (syn: “Cracker)
*Screenager
Sex (vs. intercourse)
Sexism (vs. male supremacy)
Sissy: See intro
Slave (vs. enslaved person/human)
*Snowflake
*Sorry if…
Stockholm Syndrome
Slut / Whore
Terrorist
*Third World
Tomboy
*Tone deaf
*Top school
Tribe
Under-represented
Unprecedented
*Urban
Victim vs. survivor
Violence against women (VAW)
Voiceless
*White-washed (as an insult against non-white people)
*“Wife beater” (for undershirt)
*Witch
Women and minorities
Women’s issues