SPJ Diversity Committee launches journalistic campaign against the term ‘illegal immigrant’

Laurence said the AP is simply “wrong” in its assessment.

“The Associated Press is wrong. Their stylebook is wrong,” he said. “It is not consistent with the Constitution.”

He further told TheDC that he hopes the AP changes its rule on the usage of the term in its next stylebook edition, and expects that, if the entire national SPJ adopts the Diversity Committee’s recommendations at next year’s annual convention, it will put enough pressure on the AP to do so.

Media Research Center columnist Alana Goodman, who wrote about SPJ’s new campaign earlier this month, told TheDC she doesn’t expect this campaign to be successful, and that it shouldn’t be seen as a representation of SPJ as a whole.

“It’s had very minimal impact on the group’s credibility — I don’t think many people have heard about this story,” Goodman said in an e-mail to TheDC. “Also, the opinions of the diversity committee don’t necessarily represent the opinions of SPJ as a whole. However, I think it’s unfortunate that the SPJ decided to highlight this particular argument in its monthly publication, unchallenged.”