PressEthic

In late summer of this year, there was very little joy in Tallahassee, Florida, when there should have been more than enough to go around. Florida State University, which is based in the town (some would go so far as to say that the university is the town, despite the city also happening to be the seat of state government) was expected to have a great football season. For those not from the South, a great college football season is the closest thing fans get to heaven on Earth.

The joy vanished in a blink of an eye, however, when the NCAA ruled that teams with "abusive" Native American mascots would not be eligible from identifying themselves as such during postseason play. For Florida State, whose mascot is the Seminole, this meant trouble.

For newspapers across the land, however, this was another instance of a problem that has vexed the sports pages for at least ten years. Some papers, including the Portland Oregonian, believe that mascots such as the (major league baseball) Cleveland Indians and (football) Washington Redskins are offensive to Native American readers and refuse to identify the teams by name. Rather, they are identified by city (e.g. "the Washington team lost to the New York Jets by a touchdown").

Newspapers already filter the news for language and sensitivity (by not printing the names of rape victims, for example), but should that extend to the sports pages? Or is this just another example of political correctness gone awry?

The principle that should guide editors is how mascot names are used. Printing the name "Seminole" to identify the Florida State team is different in impact and in kind from printing the headline, "Seminoles Scalp the Gators." The media shouldn't be in the business of telling sports teams what they can and can't call themselves. Rather, reporters should cover the controversy – without the paper taking a side by refusing to print the name of a team that is common knowledge.

By the end of August, Florida State fans were once again free to worry about how the team does on the field, and not what it's called. The Seminole Tribe of Florida and Oklahoma declared that it does not find the name "Seminole" demeaning, and granted its permission to the university to use the name.

For newspapers, implicitly taking a stance in a cultural issue is a dangerous precedent to set.