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Use care in deciding which term best applies: A riot is a wild or violent disturbance of the peace involving a group of people. The term riot suggests uncontrolled chaos and pandemonium.
Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s.
Unrest is a vaguer, milder and less emotional term for a condition of angry discontent and protest verging on revolt.
Protest and demonstration refer to specific actions such as marches, sit-ins, rallies or other actions meant to register dissent. They can be legal or illegal, organized or spontaneous, peaceful or violent, and involve any number of people.
Revolt and uprising both suggest a broader political dimension or civil upheavals, a sustained period of protests or unrest against powerful groups or governing systems.
New guidance: Use care and caution with terms such as disputed election and disputed victory. They require assessing whether the outcome is truly in doubt or unknown, based on reputable sources of information about accuracy and completeness of the vote count.
Don’t automatically use "disputed" when reporting on recounts, which are required by many states (or may be requested by candidates at no cost) in closely contested elections.
Don’t describe an election as disputed based on the claims of a candidate who disagrees with the outcome but is unable or unwilling to provide evidence of fraud or malfeasance.
The term defund the police often refers to taking funds from police departments to spend on other priorities such as employment programs, mental health services and social services to increase public safety. The term is sometimes misrepresented as abolishing police.
Avoid using the term "defund the police" other than in a direct quotation; if used in a quotation, explain and provide detail about what is being sought.
We carefully considered arguments that that lowercasing white discriminates against white people, or, conversely, implies that white is the default. We see merit in those views. But we believe there is greater potential harm in capitalizing the term.
We consulted with a diverse group of people internally and externally around the globe and considered a variety of commentary in making the decisions on capitalization.
We found deeply varying views among both white people and people of color, and a variety of arguments, about whether the term white should be capitalized or kept lowercase.
A key concern is that the capitalized term is used by white supremacists. Many worry that more widespread use of White could empower those groups or be seen as aligning with them.
We don't want to inadvertently encourage a view among anyone, not just supremacists, that white people deserve to be thought of as special. We do want our journalism to factually outline the disparities in treatment and experiences among races and ethnicities.
The AP decision to continue lowercasing the term white in racial, ethnic and cultural senses was more complicated than last month’s decision to capitalize Black.
We heard many reasons to capitalize Black. Arguments include: People who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities (and differences, of course). In many places, that includes the shared experience of discrimination due solely to skin color.
We found, at this time, less support for capitalizing white and no clearly accepted argument as to why to do so. White people generally do not share similar history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color.
We also consider common usage. While the capitalized Black has been rapidly adopted, the same is not true for white.
We will closely watch how usage and thought evolves, and will periodically review our decision.
PB&J is acceptable in all references to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.