Were Trump's racist tweets racist? Some news outlets won't say

When Donald Trump launched his extraordinary attack on a group of minority ethnic Democratic congresswomen, urging them to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime-infested places” from which they supposedly came, he played on a racist trope.

The women – Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley – said Trump’s remarks were “blatantly racist” and an attempt to distract from the corrupt and inhuman practices of his administration. All but one of the four politicians, who advocate policies on the leftwing of their party, were born in the US and all have American citizenship.

But not every news outlet has been as unequivocal in branding the the remarks racist, with many relying on euphemisms or attributing the accusations of racism to third parties.

The BBC News website said Trump’s tweets had been “widely called racist” and it provided context for why this was the case without directly using the term. The New York Times said in a news story that Trump’s tweets were “comments that even members of his own party called racist”, and it was criticised on late-night TV for referring in another piece merely to Trump’s “racially infused politics”. Fox News’s website described the president’s tweets as “controversial” and “inflammatory”.

Trump’s willingness to break established norms has caused trouble for news organisations that maintain a strict divide between straight reporting and opinion, as some newsdesks struggle with the extraordinary viciousness of some of the president’s outbursts.

This year the Associated Press – the main US newswire, which provides reporting to thousands of outlets – updated its style guide to encourage reporters to use accurate terminology when describing racist events. “Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable,” the newswire said in March.

A BBC spokesperson said the corporation’s news output “has left the audience in no doubt about the nature of President Trump’s tweets and the reaction to them both in the US and in this country”, although they stopped short of directly calling the tweets racist.

The spokesperson said the final decision on the exact terminology used was down to individuals on different programmes. “Editors and correspondents have made decisions in the normal way about how to describe the tweets and explain the wider political context.”

The New York Times said it was “comfortable” with how it had described the tweets and said it was “consistent with how we’ve handled previous instances when precise phrasing used to describe language was called into question”, highlighting the phrasing used when Omar was accused of making antisemitic remarks this year.

As for Twitter, where Trump made the comments, it has said they did not breach its hateful conduct policy, which means it will not limit the reach of his tweets. In any case, the site has said it will continue to host offensive comments by world leaders as a “matter of public interest”.

Trump himself – whose wife, Melania, has been a US citizen for less time than Omar – returned to the topic on Tuesday. “Those Tweets were NOT Racist,” he posted. “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”

How news organisations described Trump’s tweets

The Guardian “Racist attack”

New York Times “Comments that even members of his own party called racist”; “widely established as a racist trope”

Wall Street Journal “Racially charged”

Associated Press: “Trump digs in on racist tweets”

BBC News “Tweets widely called racist”

Fox News: “Inflammatory tweets”; “controversial tweets”

CNN “Racist attacks”

MSNBC “Trump’s racist tweets”