Respectful, varied use of words can nudge the world

Paul Rusesabagina spoke in the suburbs this week about the power of words.

It's an important message for anyone, but especially for people who produce and who read newspapers.

"I believe, myself, in the power of words," Rusesabagina told students at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights. "(Words) can be the best and worst weapons."

He's right, of course, and although the message is neither new nor rare (it's been repeated in various ways from biblical times, in voices as diverse as those of Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill and Marshall Mathers III), it bears constant repetition. For when we understand how people are using words, and how we ourselves are using them, we understand better how to avoid injury from them, and how not to be manipulated by them.

Rusesabagina did not set out to be a word warrior, of course. He was one of those men who was neither born to greatness nor achieved it but had it thrust upon him as a simple hotel manager who became caught up in the midst of a terror-fueled genocide. His soft-spoken courage kept murderous marauders at bay and saved nearly 1,300 lives in a crisis that was remembered in the 2004 Hollywood movie "Hotel Rwanda."

The weaponry of words plays out in diverse ways in a newspaper. It is most visible here, on the Opinion page. Daily, we try with our own voice to engage your ideas and move our communities and world with the unsigned editorial at the top of the page, and throughout the week we provide a wide range of opinions on political and social issues from syndicated national columnists. In the center, you all join in what is perhaps the liveliest exchange in the whole paper through our Fence Post, or letters to the editor.

But battles play out in subtler ways throughout the paper. While we strive to present news articles as objectively as possible, the subversive strength of our words cannot be ignored and, to be sure, the people we quote promote one point of view or another that bears a critical witness. Even as I write this, I'm hearing on the radio a financial expert warn us to listen for the "carefully nuanced" phrases of the Fed as it prepares to report on the economy.

It is an overstatement to view the newspaper as a battleground, but not by much. Hundreds of little verbal battles are going on every day on nearly every page. Saying that, I'm both intrigued and a bit shamed by another observation from Rusesabagina's speech at Viator. For one, the sanitized and subtle intellectual battles that take place on a safe slab of newsprint are nothing compared with the bloody brutality that tore Rwanda apart in the 1990s. But, Rusesabagina also hinted at the powerful role images play in the presentation of the stories of people.

"Some scenes (in a movie) cannot be as accurate as real life, because it was so violent," he said, describing the editing that must be done in any description of horror. "Who would want to watch that?"

We, too, must be similarly judicious in recounting the events we describe. We carefully word stories about abuse to protect victims. We strive for a balance when describing brutal crimes or natural disasters that reports events accurately but sensitively. We often describe horrible traffic accidents with almost clinical distance.

Playwright Tom Stoppard called words sacred. "They deserve respect," he said. "If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little."

Not all of us will nudge the world to the tune of saving 1,300 lives, but it is good to be reminded, especially at a newspaper, of what can be achieved when words are properly respected.