by Karim H. Karim
Content Magazine, January 1988
Reprinted with the author's permission.

While statistics often are quoted to support contrary arguments, figures of speech – being less precise than their numerical counterparts – have even greater potential for misuse. The connotative nature of words can, consciously or unconsciously, create an undertone in prose that on the surface appears neutral. Thus, while such verbal devices as metaphors are deemed essential to good writing, the systematic attachment of negative or positive imagery to individuals, groups, or situations does not make for fair or balanced journalism.

Barrie Zwicker, second editor and publisher of Content, did an article on stereotyping in an early issue of the magazine. He asked: "Can we do without stereotypes, without generalizations? Perhaps not. They are an economy, shortcuts we substitute for endless inquiry. What matters is the character of the stereotypes, who is using them and why, what attitudes they enforce. In our writing, we must recognize them for the coarse and heavy-handed language tools they are, the broadaxes of language. We also need to see that each person employs a pattern of stereotypes which is not neutral."

When a consistent pattern of hackneyed descriptions is combined with slanted statistics, the supposed neutrality of reporting is diminished further. And at the point where the truth is barely discernible under layers of words and numbers, covering the story becomes precisely that.

Reporting on the arrival of refugee claimants to Montreal in 1987 was characterized by inflated and ambiguous numbers buttressed by imagery that was predominantly aqueous. The groups of newcomers were described almost invariably as vast quantities of water rushing in to inundate Canada. The primary image of "flood" was elevated practically to the status of an epithet as newspapers communicated a level of apocalyptic hydrophobia probably not experienced since Noah's time.

Weather watchers at the Montreal Gazette broke the story on December 30, 1986 with, "Refugee applicants flood Mirabel airport.'' The following day, a Canadian Press article in the Globe and Mail said: "One of the hundreds of Turkish refugees who have recently flooded into Canada ...."

Growing stronger with daily use, the image had entrenched itself as the standard – almost natural – characterization of the situation by the second week of coverage. The Gazette's January 6, 1987 editorial stated that: "Federal, provincial and voluntary resources are being strained by this flood of newcomers" and "the imposition of visa requirements helped stem a similar flood of 'refugees' from Portugal." It suggested that: "Ottawa should take exceptionally energetic measures to stop the flood."

The following day, the Toronto Star reported on immigration minister Benoit Bouchard, "responding to a public uproar over the arrival of a flood of foreigners - many of them Turks." Joining the chorus, the weekly Montreal Downtowner carried a front-page piece January 7 which said that: "Refugees, most of them Turks from Germany (sic), are flooding Montreal."

An elaborate network of related metaphors emerged to support the image of "flood" – including trickle, stream, flow, pour, awash, tide, wave, swamp, and deluge. The Downtowner mixed metaphors with: "this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the steady 'deluge' of refugees" in its January 7 issue. Finally, two weeks after it had first sounded the "flood" warning, the Gazette signaled the all-clear with a January 13 headline announcing that: "Flood of refugee claimants dries up."

The Globe and Mail's choice of words insisted even more urgently that the country was soon to be completely overwhelmed. On December 1, it wrote of: "the wave of more than 700 refugees (that) swept into Montreal" and "the head of a Montreal social support group, (who) said that the group had been swamped." The January 7 issue said: "the system is very near the bursting point." A January 5 editorial spoke of, "a world awash with 11 million refugees" and that, "the pipeline is full of Portuguese and Turkish applicants.''

But perhaps the paper's most vivid and disturbing image was drawn by the conclusion of its December 31 editorial which, in asking for stringent refugee restrictions, warned that junior minister Gerry Weiner, "cannot simply play the Dutch boy who sticks his finger in the dike." The message seemed to be that if immigration barriers were not immediately reinforced with legislative steel, the unwashed millions will wash over Canada.

Figures of speech such as those used to report the refugee situation have become integral to contemporary writing, but the repetitious and consistent application of negative, inanimate metaphors to specific persons or groups can result gradually in their dehumanization. The individuality of refugee claimants was being effaced by the unremitting barrage of imagery, making them seem instead as masses of alien matter that were forcibly attempting to penetrate our domain.

An air of authenticity was lent to the coverage by the liberal peppering of statistics which were, however, grossly exaggerated when compared with actual figures. Working in tandem, the aqueous metaphors and the inflated numbers created a threatening image of a massive, faceless invasion of our territory.

One could conclude that usual journalistic standards were suspended once it became clear that many of the newcomers were not what they claimed to be. The existence of a closely-related set of metaphors and framing of the situation in many papers reveals either a lack of imagination or the uniform regurgitation of the language, definitions, and perspectives originating from dominant sources.

In his piece on stereotyping, Zwicker quoted from George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. A writer, said Orwell, can shirk his duty and "let the ready-made phrases come crowding in." These words and phrases, "will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of writing becomes clear." 

Karim H. Karim lives in Ottawa, and works as a Senior Researcher for the Department of Canadian Heritage.