Sanewashing

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Sanewashing is the act of minimizing the perceived radical aspects of a person or idea in order to make them appear more acceptable to a wider audience. The term was initially coined in online discussions about defunding the police in 2020, but has come to greater prominence in critique of media practices relating to Donald Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election. Journalism organizations and media commentators have suggested actions both readers and writers can take to mitigate sanewashing.

Contents

History

The earliest usage of "sanewashing" dates to 2007 in a blog post written by academic Dale Carrico. [1] [2] The first known usage of the term in a political context is credited to a user on r/neoliberal, a Reddit forum for neoliberals, in 2020. [1] [3] In 2024, journalist Aaron Rupar was credited with being the first to use the term in the specific context of media reporting of Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. [4]

Journalism school and research organization the Poynter Institute defines it as "the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal", and suggests it is analogous to greenwashing or sportswashing. [5] The Week reported Matt Bernius, writing at Outside the Beltway , as asking "Where's the line between paraphrasing and 'sanewashing'?", ultimately concluding that it is "a dangerous form of bias". [6]

2024 United States presidential campaign

Paul Farhi wrote in The Atlantic , in reference to the term, that reporters have a "tendency to render the Republican candidate's most bizarre and incoherent statements into cogent English, shearing off the crazy in a misleading manner". [7] Kelly McBride, in discussing whether NPR is guilty of sanewashing, wrote that the news organization has been criticized for what it describes as "packaging Trump's ideas into news stories as if they are sensible suggestions". [8] Columnist Will Bunch wrote in September 2024 that he thought sanewashing "has all but clinched Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2024". [9] (Merriam-Webster disagreed. Their word of the year was "polarization". [10] )

The Associated Press published multiple perspectives on sanewashing in an October 9 article, with some media critics advocating for more unfiltered quotes and clips of Trump and others pushing back on whether the media has been guilty of the practice leading up to the 2024 election. [11]

Examples

Causes

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic told the On Point radio show that it's important to note that sanewashing is not a conspiracy or an act of collusion between Trump and the media. Rather, it happens because the normal conventions of campaign journalism don't account for candidates that don't stick to "a certain pattern and a certain norm" of speech. On the same show, host Meghna Chakrabarti explained that representing the various tangents of Trump's speech can be a challenge in a medium with time or space constraints, like a radio show or newspaper. [16]

The New York Times has suggested that Trump's incoherent remarks receive little attention because of how common they have become. According to The Associated Press, the idea that journalists have become accustomed to things Trump says that they might find shocking from other politicians is termed "the banality of crazy" by political scientist Brian Klaas. [18] [11]

Remedies

Rob Tornoe wrote in Editor & Publisher that one technique journalists can use to avoid sanewashing is the truth sandwich technique. [19] Kelly McBride, writing for the Poynter Institute, listed various approaches, including to "let the quotes stand", to "point out the lies and also the purpose they serve", and to "identify the journalistic purpose" of a quote. [5]

Parker Molloy wrote in The New Republic that readers, not just journalists, also have some responsibility to help counter sanewashing. According to her, readers should "seek out primary sources", and "support news outlets that prioritize accuracy over access or the appearance of 'balance'." [14] [6]

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic praised the New York Times for its in-depth October 6, 2024, piece analyzing Trump's speeches since 2015 with a focus on Trump's mental fitness, and advocated for continuing to focus on this story of mental acuity. [20]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Wilton, David (October 2024). "sanewashing". Wordorigins.org. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  2. ↑ Carrico, Dale (October 26, 2007). "amor mundi: Sanewashing Superlativity (For a More Gentle Seduction)". amor mundi. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  3. ↑ inverseflorida (November 11, 2020). "How did "Defund the police" stop meaning "Defund the police"? - Why mainstream progressives have a strong incentive to 'sanewash' hard leftist positions". r/neoliberal. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  4. ↑ Allsop, Jon (September 9, 2024). "Is the press 'sanewashing' Trump?". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved October 15, 2024. The term itself actually isn't new, and it wasn't born in media-criticism circles, per se; according to Urban Dictionary, it was coined in 2020 on a Reddit page for neoliberals (which Linda Kinstler wrote about recently for CJR), and meant 'attempting to downplay a person or idea's radicality to make it more palatable to the general public.' (It was deployed in discussions around, for example, 'defunding the police.')
  5. 1 2 McBride, Kelly (September 12, 2024). "How to avoid sanewashing Trump (and other politicians)". Poynter Institute . Retrieved October 15, 2024.
  6. 1 2 3 Mathis, Joel (September 13, 2024). "Is the media 'sanewashing' Trump?". The Week . Retrieved October 5, 2024.
  7. ↑ Farhi, Paul (September 13, 2024). "Trump Has Not Been 'Sane-Washed'". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 5, 2024.
  8. ↑ McBride, Kelly (September 19, 2024). "Accurately quoting Trump - Is NPR 'sanewashing'?". NPR. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
  9. ↑ Bunch, Will (September 10, 2024). "GOP red states launch a war on voting rights". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved October 9, 2024. I think sanewashing has all but clinched Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2024 –not just for its cleverness, but because finding the right language may be having a positive impact on our politics and our future.
  10. ↑ "2024 Word of the Year: Polarization". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved December 10, 2024.
  11. 1 2 3 Bauder, David (October 9, 2024). "Sanewashing? The banality of crazy? A decade into the Trump era, media hasn't figured him out". Associated Press . Retrieved October 9, 2024.
  12. ↑ Suter, Tara (October 2, 2024). "Nate Silver suggests Walz was 'sanewashing' Vance". The Hill . Retrieved October 15, 2024. The term 'sanewashing' is going around among liberal media critics, the idea that the media is too willing to normalize [former President] Trump and Vance's behavior," Silver said in a Substack post Wednesday. "Wasn't Walz sanewashing Vance? He said nothing about the Republican ticket's conspiratorial claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets, for instance.
  13. 1 2 Beckwith, Ryan Teague; Detzel, Allison (October 2, 2024). "JD Vance brings 'sanewashing' to the debate stage". MSNBC.com. Retrieved October 6, 2024. On Tuesday, Vance took that same "sanewashing" approach to the debate stage in New York. When pressed by the moderators about Trump calling climate change a "hoax," for example, Vance deflected. Instead of answering yes or no, Vance tried to "interpret" for Trump.
  14. 1 2 Molloy, Parker (September 4, 2024). "How the Media Sanitizes Trump's Insanity". The New Republic. ISSN   0028-6583 . Retrieved October 5, 2024.
  15. ↑ Rodriguez, Sabrina; Arnsdorf, Isaac (October 1, 2024). "Trump mixes up words, swerves among subjects in off-topic speech". The Washington Post . Retrieved October 15, 2024.
  16. 1 2 Sutherland, Paige; Chakrabarti, Meghna (October 8, 2024). "Is the media 'sanewashing' Trump?". WBUR . Retrieved October 9, 2024.
  17. 1 2 Gilmour, David (October 10, 2024). "'Headline Lunacy': NY Times Ridiculed for Framing on Trumps' Eugenics Remarks As 'Intellectual Curiosity'". Mediaite . Retrieved October 15, 2024.
  18. ↑ Baker, Peter; Freedman, Dylan (October 6, 2024). "Trump's Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age". The New York Times . Retrieved October 15, 2024. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.
  19. ↑ Tornoe, Rob (October 1, 2024). "The 'sanewashing' phenomenon". Editor and Publisher. Retrieved October 5, 2024. So, how do you avoid sanewashing Trump or any other politician? The first thing you can do is employ a 'truth sandwich' in your coverage. Developed by author and linguist George Lakoff and promoted by New York University professor and author Jay Rosen, it basically means to surround a lie or misstatement with the truth.
  20. ↑ Tomasky, Michael (October 7, 2024). "The Media Is Finally Waking Up to the Story of Trump's Mental Fitness". The New Republic. ISSN   0028-6583 . Retrieved October 9, 2024.
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