Indy’s The Eagle explains its cover “p***y”
by Fred Kuhr
The Eagle, based in Indianapolis and formerly known as The Word, recently ran a full front-page cover showing now-President Donald Trump with the words, in all caps: “AMERICA GRABBED ‘BY THE P***Y.’”
Press Pass Q did not add the asterisks. The Eagle did. And in a lengthy explanation from its editors, the newspaper explained how the staff had “much internal debate” about whether to “use the entire P word, or just hint at it.”
“Provocative words aren’t always fit for general use,” the editors, lead by Editor in Chief DJ Doran, wrote in the issue right after the election. “We all know certain words that we shouldn’t use in polite conversation. For the record, we came THIS CLOSE … to using the entire P word. We wanted to highlight this election of a president who’d publicly used the word with little regret.”
The editors then asked female staffers and others what they thought. And they received mixed responses, ranging from, “Trump said it. We can’t let folks forget it,” to “Why would you use that word? It’s gross.”
In the end, the editors decided to used the asterisked version of the word “to avoid cover crudity.”
“But you get the point,” the editors wrote. “… A casual comment made over 10 years ago to Billy Bush nearly cost Trump the election – not the immigration issue; not the shadow bigotry he pushed; not the flimsy economic plans or the sloppy and offensive comments about jailing Mrs. Clinton. Be he recovered and he won. And so it goes. Asterisks matter.”
IN THE NEWS
Volume 18
Issue 10
