Bowing to growing pressure, The Associated Press on Tuesday dropped the controversial

Bowing to growing pressure, The Associated Press on Tuesday dropped the controversial term “illegal immigrant” from its widely used and referenced Stylebook.

The updated entry explains:

Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.

Pro-immigrant advocates and media outlets who have long advocated for the change celebrated the news.

“We did it! AP Drops the I-Word!… This is HUGE!!!!” posted on his Facebook page Roberto Lovato, a strategist at Presente.org who was part of a group that launched a national grassroots campaign to raise awareness and get the media and public officials to stop using the term.

AP didn’t credit the activists but acknowledged in a blog post explaining the decision that: “The discussions on this topic have been wide-ranging and include many people from many walks of life.”

AP said that it has been “ridding the Stylebook of labels… And that discussion about labeling people, instead of behavior, led us back to ‘illegal immigrant’ again.”

Last October, The New York Times’ public editor Margaret Sullivan considered dropping the offensive term but stuck to it, saying “I see no advantage for Times readers in a move away from the paper’s use of the phrase ‘illegal immigrant.’”

But the tide seems to be changing at the New York Times too. Colorlines, which was part of the original Drop the I-Word campaign over three years ago, reported on AP’s decision, and added a tweet by Sullivan saying:

On “illegal immigrants”: I’m told that @nytimes is also working on revisions to its usage category_idelines to “provide more nuance and options.”

A later blog post by Sullivan says, “From what I can gather, The Times’s changes will not be nearly as sweeping as The A.P.’s.” While she does not believe the publication would outright ban the term, “it will ‘provide more nuance and options’ for what term to use, said Philip B. Corbett, associate managing editor for standards.”

via http://voicesofny.org