‘Turning down the rhetoric’: Coverage of polarizing issues requires precise language

At a news conference in July, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre berated a Globe and Mail reporter who asked about the party’s plan for “safe injection sites,” calling the term “dishonest language.”

“You just repeat the language that is fed to you by the government…,” Mr. Poilievre continued, while cameras rolled. “You call them safe? How can they be safe?”

Actually, both the reporter and the politician were incorrect. Federal government materials and many health care providers call the facilities supervised consumption sites, acknowledging that any use of illicit drugs, such as fentanyl and heroin, carries risk.

The incident shone a light on the proliferation of inaccurate information put before the public on this and other health issues. When covering topics that are controversial or polarizing, journalists must take care to avoid loaded or stigmatizing language that might be used by sources – such as Mr. Poilievre’s repeated reference to supervised consumption sites as “drug dens” at one end of the spectrum and, at the other, minimizing language such as “safe”, which can be found in some local government materials and in academic journals, as well as in spoken communication. And journalists must ensure they’re conveying the right information, with the right context.

Why is this so difficult to get right? As experts’ understanding of addiction and treatment has evolved, so has the language to describe it, explained Andrea Woo, a British Columbia-based Globe and Mail reporter who regularly covers substance use and mental-health issues, in an e-mail conversation with me. (For the record, Andrea is not the reporter whom Mr. Poilievre chastised at the Montreal news conference.)

“The term ‘safe supply’ actually originated with drug users, who were calling for access to regulated substances amid a toxic drug crisis. B.C. Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry adopted the term, it faced some backlash from people who said there is no such thing as a ‘safe’ supply of these drugs, and so the name has evolved over the years,” Andrea said.

“‘Safe injection site’ as a term was largely phased out of government literature years ago and replaced with ‘supervised consumption site’. Similarly, B.C.’s program to prescribe regulated opioids to people at high risk of overdose from illicit drugs has gone from ‘safe supply’ to ‘safer supply’ to ‘prescribed alternatives’.”

Of course, there is more to journalistic best practice than using the most up-to-date terminology.

“On issues that are already as emotionally and politically charged as this, journalists can play an important role by turning down the rhetoric and providing the public with the information they need to make informed decisions,” Andrea said.

“A considerable challenge is laying out the complexity of the toxic drug crisis and all the nuanced details of various approaches [to treatment], in competition with clips and sound bites about ‘free drugs’ and ‘drug dens.’ The latter is potent political messaging, intentionally evocative to sway a worried public.”

This calls to mind courtroom dramas in which the hotshot lawyer destroys the credibility of a witness with over-the-top oration, knowing full well that seeds of doubt have been planted and will remain after an objection is registered.

The framing of a topic and story sources is as important as steering clear of charged language, said Sarah Everts, an associate professor of journalism and the CTV Chair in Digital Science Journalism at Carleton University, in a phone interview. She asks her students to consider whether they would write about someone with a “very socially accepted condition” in the same way they have written about someone who uses supervised consumption sites. If they replace “drug user” with “diabetic” in their story, do they feel their story has painted an accurate and unbiased picture?

Lack of bias was identified in the Reuters Institute 2024 Digital News Report as one of four primary factors influencing readers’ trust – along with high standards, transparency and fair representation. This is important for both journalists and the public, given the continuing decline in trust in the media, to the tune of nearly 20 percentage points over the past six years.

Health reporters missed an opportunity to offer the public a more transparent view of how COVID-19 unfolded, said Ms. Everts, who is also a scientist and science journalist of nearly two decades who holds degrees in biophysics and chemistry.

The early research was conflicting; scientists and public health specialists didn’t agree on how COVID was spread. She said that’s typical of any emerging scientific topic. But as more research is completed, the scientists’ findings begin to agree with each other – approaching what is known as consensus. “At some point it hits 95 to 99 per cent. And that’s when in the scientific world – that’s a scientific fact. That’s when things get into the textbook.”

With COVID, many scientists initially believed the virus landed on surfaces, basing their assumptions on what was known about the SARS respiratory virus outbreak of 2003.

As the scientists continued their work, they came to discover that COVID doesn’t land on surfaces; it remains in the air. That consensus view informed public health guidance on masking.

The work of scientists is to test and challenge theories and, as such, Ms. Everts said, “science is constantly evolving. If it doesn’t, you have to be suspicious.”