Prairie State Wire

"Chicago's Morning Answer" host Dan Proft commented on a recently-revealed list of banned words that Politico sent to its staff members.

"Look, if you use these words or idioms, your mouth is gonna be washed out with soap, if you're allowed to even use that idiom, I don't know," Proft said.

Politico's list indicates that it was regulating the language used in its publications, especially in regard to transgender topics. According to Fox News, the list, which was first circulated in January 2022, also included other words considered potentially offensive and was only recently made public.

"A style guide sent to staff in January 2022 reads more like a game of Media Matters mad libs than a document for journalists," said Spectator World reporter Amber Athey, who made the list public on March 6. "It suggested some non-inclusive words that Politico reporters should avoid using in their work." Athey also suggested that the list was part of a larger multi-year internal push by Politico to avoid promoting transphobia in its work.

Not the Bee also reported that Politico has prohibited the use of certain masculine terms such as "mankind", "man-made" and "manhunt". Other banned terms related to gender include "waiter" and "waitress", which were indicated to be replaced with "server". Banned terms related to biological sex include "biological woman", "biological female", "biological man" and "biological male". Terms such as "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" are also prohibited, as well as terms tied to racist motifs such as "cakewalk", "peanut gallery" and "crack the whip".

Politico also banned journalists from using phrases such as "identifies as" when referring to transgender people and discouraged them from using the term "crisis" in regard to immigrants and immigration as a whole". The list also discourages the use of certain abortion-related terms, such as using "pro-choice" instead of "abortion rights supporter".