[Ads-l] The Times lowers the barricade (F-word division)

[Laurence Horn]

Jesse can provide the precedents, but the general policy in The Times (as opposed to other publications, e.g. The New Yorker) seems still to be for expurgation. But perhaps not when “fuck” is used in a political context, at least in (more or less) direct quotes.  Here’s an excerpt from today’s op-ed column by Bret Stephens:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-protests-left.html1 <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-protests-left.html1>

In London, an estimated 5,000 demonstrators gathered near the Israeli embassy and shot off fireworks toward the building. At a rally at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, chants of “Free Palestine” gave way to the underlying emotion <https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/wild-scenes-erupt-in-sydney-amid-protest-against-israel/news-story/e03a33f5cefe7c2bd081212cdea5978b>: “Fuck the Jews.” 

Stephens’s link to an article about the pro-Hamas demonstration in Sydney, https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/wild-scenes-erupt-in-sydney-amid-protest-against-israel/news-story/e03a33f5cefe7c2bd081212cdea5978b <https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/wild-scenes-erupt-in-sydney-amid-protest-against-israel/news-story/e03a33f5cefe7c2bd081212cdea5978b>, actually doesn’t reproduce the F-word in its entirety:

While the majority of protesters were peaceful, a few began shouting anti-Semitic slurs and at one stage, a chant of “F*** The Jews” started amid a few groups.

(Maybe Stephens thought his point would be made more strongly by spelling the invective out fully.)

LH
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