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Shut Your LoopholeAdd loophole to the list of words that should be banned from journalism.

By Jack Shafer
Posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at 5:41 PM ET
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Click image to expand.

Upon entering the English language in the late 16th century, the word loophole defined the narrow opening in a wall through which defenders jetted arrows, javelins, or stones at foes.

Over the centuries, this perfectly useful term has been corrupted by rhetorical con artists to mean terrible "gaps" in the law—or in the tax code—that demand "closing." Because the legal code allows all that it does not prohibit, loophole prospectors needn't look far to discover new ones. Just find a permitted behavior in the proximity of a banned one and scream, "Eureka!"

It's a loaded, partisan word, one that implies wrongdoing and scandal where none exists, and inserting it into a political argument gives the inserter the upper hand. When loophole creeps into news stories, they start to read like editorials.

For these obvious reasons, news reporters should keep their stories and headlines loophole-free. But they don't. In the past six months, the news pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Washington Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal have published at least 45 stories with the nasty word in the headline.

The Washington Post shouted loophole just yesterday in "Loophole Lets Candidates Skirt Donation Limit" (July 23). Using the word in both the headline and the story, the Post reports that presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and John Edwards are legally collecting donations for their presidential campaigns at the same time they're gathering money from other political entities connected to them. For example, presidential candidate Clinton has also declared herself a candidate for re-election to the Senate in 2012, thus allowing supporters to make double donations to her.

The Post headline makes the candidates sound extra naughty by stating that the loophole allows them to "skirt" donation limits. Like loophole, skirt is a slippery, vague, and slightly accusatory word. But why should we think of it that way? By definition, anybody who skirts a law is still in compliance with it. A more accurate headline for the Post piece would have been "Candidates Exercise Maximum Fund-Raising Rights."

The New York Times gets in similar trouble by headlining a June 21 piece "Mexico Moves to Cut Back Tax Loopholes for Businesses." Now, Mexican business may indeed benefit from what some would call "tax loopholes." But the story never names the loopholes or even gestures in their direction. The basic thrust of the story is that the Mexican government wants to collect more taxes, so it's rewriting the tax laws. As written, the piece would have been better served by a headline that avoided editorializing—something like "Mexican President Calls for More Taxes."

Some headline writers regard any lawful behaviors as a voyage through a loophole. Consider the May 23 headline to a Cox News Service story published in the Chicago Tribune: "House Blocks Stores' Bank Bid; Senate May See Closer Vote on Bill Closing Loophole."

What's the loophole? Under current law, the article explains, firms can own and operate "industrial loan companies," a limited type of bank. Such institutions are so common that 58 corporations, including General Motors, Target, and American Express, operate ILCs, the story reports.

So, in what sense can ILCs be regarded as the offspring of loopholes? The 482-word piece doesn't explore until its last 70 words that established bankers don't want additional competition for customers, hence their call for restrictive laws. Also, Wal-Mart wants its own ILC, but unions so hate Wal-Mart they'll do anything to stop Wal-Mart from becoming bigger, so they want ILCs curtailed. In this case, a loophole is free access for all to the right to create a limited bank. A superior headline for this piece would have been "Banks, Supported by Unions, Make Progress in Winning Protection From Competition."

I don't mean to suggest that ideology lurks behind every headline that includes the "L" word. (It's okay with me if editorialists and op-ed columnists use the word.) Headlines are usually written by the copy staff, and while some of these suffering bastards are closet Marxists who want the government to run everything, most of them merely pick up on the themes inside the article itself. If the reporter calls something a loophole, and the editor approves it, who are they to avoid it? Especially when they're on deadline.

Likewise, most reporters I know are less interested in pushing their political views on readers than they are in getting interesting information printed. They rely on loophole because it compresses interesting findings from the complex worlds of campaign finance, taxation, or regulation into a bite-size nugget their editor can swallow: "Oh, it's a loophole story! Why didn't you say so?"

But it shouldn't be so. Once reporters understand that one man's loophole is another man's freedom, they'll never use the word again. At least not outside quotation marks.

******

Open all the loopholes! Let the gutters run bright and bubbly with champagne! Draw me a bath of ambrosia! Send your loophole reflections to . (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)

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Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Shafer has a valid point, but doesn't any widely disseminated print medium sometimes have to utilize the colloquialisms of its audience/readership? After all, newpapers theoretically appeal to a broad diverse readership that, while seeking deeper analysis than tv, radio or a blogger provide, still must rely on a vernacular in digesting stories of aspects of, for example, complex tax or campaign finance laws.

Yes, the term loophole carries some editorial semiotics, but nothing approaching the calculated deformation -- to which all media have acquiesced -- of terms like "conservative" (used universally to identify even the most reactionary political elements) and "reform" (as in "tort reform," meaning the stripping away of the ability of people to seek legal redress against the more powerful.)

--johnnyb

(To reply, click here.)

According to Merriam Webster's, a loophole can be considered "an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded." The author's assertion that the parties mentioned in the above examples are acting within their legal rights is certainly true, yet I think he misses the point of using the word. It is an implication that while the letter of the law is being followed, the intent is not.

In the cited example regarding business taxes in Mexico, the author's proposed headline of "Mexican President Calls for More Taxes" would not be accurate. In fact, the government is attempting to rewrite the tax law to collect the taxes from businesses it desired when the laws were first (erroneously) composed.

I agree with the author in that use of the word needs to be monitored to avoid editorializing. However, eliminating the use of the word in a time in which legal implementation of policy can frequently stray from the mark would deprive journalists with a useful tool in being concise in the appropriate articles.

--AJB313

(To reply, click here.)

Jack Shafer makes a compelling case that "loophole" is more and more often a loaded way people describe any legal behavior of which they disapprove.

I propose a loophole standard:

Before using the word, journalists must be able to 1) cite the law which they believe ought to have prevented such behavior, and 2) present credible evidence that they possess insight into the intent of the framers of the law, such that they can state with confidence that this legislative intent is being contravened.

Not realistic in a printed story, but in the world of hyperlinks, this can be easily done without breaking the narrative.

--moodyguppy

(To reply, click here.)

The problem is not the word "loophole." The problem is the lazy reporting that fails to justify its use. Shafer pays lip service to it, but ignores for his whine. Every single one of his substitute headlines is just as bad as the ones he is railing against.

Shafer seems to be pushing for the non-informative journalism we see so much of these days: Person A said this. Person B said the opposite. There we go, we reported the news. Um, didn't Person A say the opposite just a couple weeks ago? And didn't Person B think this was a nothing story until Person A flipped his position? Where is the context? Where is the...oh, what to call it...oh, that's right! "Journalism"?

The role of a reporter is not just to write declarative sentences. It is to provide complete context for the events that happened. But that entails work and who can do that when you're too busy whining about the word "loophole"?

--Rrhain

(To reply, click here.)

(7/27)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Topic A: Obama's Speech
| Pundits and diplomats respond.
Robinson: Sunshine in BerlinToles: Obama the UniterTelnaes: Meanwhile, McCain
PLUS » Stumped: Bring Back Bill Clinton