Blog Post 3: The A**hole Dilemma

First of all, my stance on obscenities and profanity would be to only use them if they were necessary and exclude or put asterisks in place of them if they're unneeded. My main argument for this is that profanities and vulgarities are used in excess by some people that they lose their meaning to the point where they equate to an "uh". While I'm not trying to paint the whole usage of profanity with a broad brush, I definitely know that there are people who use it too liberally that it loses meaning. 

That stance applies mostly toward private citizens because they're status is not looked up to on a daily basis. 

Situations 1:

I wouldn't run this usage because it does not add anything else to the story. By blurring it out with an asterisk, we would not take anything away from the statements of the individual toward the dancing studio. And since there is no benefit to running the words, there could be more risks in readers angry about the use of profanity in a paper.

Just as well, there is nothing newsworthy about a private citizen cursing. I think it should only be reserved for public and popular figures in society.

Situation 2:

Yes, I would publish Bush's slip up of the word 'asshole'. Though Bush believed he was in a private setting, this is newsworthy because it reveals how a presidential candidate is behind-the-scenes. Rarely does the public ever get to see public figures as they truly are. Public figures always have a veil of theatrics over them because they have to satisfy certain standards. Moments like these, though Bush did not mean to say it publicly reveal a character trait that would otherwise be unable to be found. 

And I would not put them in asterisks because it would detract from the immense verbal slip-up made by Bush. 

Situation 3:

This is tricky for me because it's a public figure who knew what they were going to say, but what they were going to say does not carry as much impact as does the Bush situation. Including 'asshole' in this would be more like shock factor than the newsworthiness of Bush's situation. For the sports community though, it would be big news for them to see a coach insult a whole team. Overall, I'd publish this with the word substituted with asterisks like 'a**hole' or '***hole'. 

I think the main point of the asterisks would be understood without actually having them written down. Unlike the Bush situation, the characteristics of an NBA coach do not weigh as much as the POTUS.