Abstract
When President Trump used “shithole” to describe several countries in discussion of immigration, news organizations faced violating journalistic norms against profanity to use his precise language. Evaluation of 2,469 stories containing “shithole” in 70 large newspaper websites over a 15-day period found all news organizations used the term at least once. It was most used in three types of articles—stories about the meeting in Congressional leaders reported hearing Trump use the word, issues of public policy and politics, and evaluation of Trump. Analysis showed the influences of news values, journalistic norms, and organizational practices on use of profanity.
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