Journalists’ Apprehension of Being Politically Correct: A Source of Racial Stereotyping of Street Harassment Perpetrators in the Press

ABSTRACT

While racialized stereotyping in mass media is well-documented, sociological analysis of the journalistic practices and norms contributing to the production of such representations remains underdeveloped. We study these by analyzing media reporting on street harassment in the Netherlands, which frequently mentioned the racialized profiles of perpetrators. Existing research has proposed two major causes of racialized stereotyping in the press: (1) journalists’ passive and unreflective reproduction of popular racialized stereotypes and (2) commercialization of the press as favoring the provocative racialized discourse of right-wing populists. Based on content analysis of press coverage and interviews with Dutch journalists and the actors they reported on—politicians, activists, and others involved in the public problem of street harassment—we identify apprehension of political correctness as a third cause of racialized framings in the press. Specifically, we show how many journalists considered addressing the question of whether racialized men are overrepresented as perpetrators to be a way of avoiding complicity with politicians and other powerful actors who allegedly avoid sensitive questions about race and migration. This article proposes a theory of “apprehension of political correctness” as a contribution to scholarship on journalistic practice and racialized stereotyping in the press.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalism
• political correctness
• street harassment
• racial stereotyping
• qualitative sociology
• gender
• objectivity

Since the late 1990s, the concept of political correctness has been at the center of debates on gender, diversity, and migration around Europe. In the context of mass sexual assaults in Germany (Leine, Mikkelsen, and Sen 2020, 190), French controversies surrounding the headscarf (Farris 2017), and Dutch debates spurred by violence against LGBTQIA+ people (Tonkens and Duyvendak 2016), critics with right-leaning political preferences have blamed political correctness. They affirm that the desire to appear politically correct has prevented the authorities and media from exposing the alleged sexual threat posed by male migrants and racialized¹ men.

Existing scholarship on the relationship between political correctness and news production analyzes news coverage of public debates on political correctness (Johnson, Culpeper, and Suhr 2003; Whitney and Wartella 1992) or focuses on whether it is, in fact, problematic. Some consider the concerns surrounding political correctness to be a sensible reaction to “censure and cancel culture”(Newfield 2018; Pilger 1996), while others characterize them as opportunistic cover-up strategies to protect traditional privileges (Scott 1991; Thiele 2021). There is little empirical research, however, analyzing the effects of these concerns about political correctness on how journalists do their work. This article shifts the perspective, therefore, not by investigating whether political correctness constitutes an objective problem, but rather by analyzing how these concerns inform journalists’ professional practices. To do so, we zoom in on an empirical case, namely on the practices and products of reporting on street harassment in the Netherlands.

In Dutch media and politics, concerns about political correctness are particularly central in public debate on issues relating to gender and race (Çankaya and Mepschen 2019; Fassin 2006). Media reporting on street harassment frequently cited the racialized profiles of perpetrators and alleged perpetrators. As reporting in other countries has shown that street harassment is not necessarily related to migration and race (Dekker 2019), the Netherlands constitutes a strategic case uncovering mechanisms that compel journalists to make that link.

This paper contributes to the literature that aims to identify factors influencing journalists to produce racialized representations of sexual violence and other social problems. This body of work has proposed two major causes of racialized stereotyping in the press. First, racialized stereotyping in mass media is often thought to result from journalists’ passive and unreflective reproduction of popular racial stereotypes (Mucchielli 2005; Van Dijk 2012), notably because they relay the racialized framings of right-wing “primary definers” (Hall 1995; Hall et al., 1978)—e.g., state institutions, politicians, and others with the power to impose their definition of a problem. Second, various studies show that the commercialization of the press encourages journalists to make provocative and entertaining reports, which tend to favor the racializing discourse of right-wing populists (Ellinas 2018; Mazzoleni 2008).

Based on content analysis of press coverage in five major newspapers and interviews with Dutch journalists and the actors they reported on—politicians, activists, and others involved in the public problem of street harassment—we identify “apprehension of political correctness” as a third cause of racialized framings in the press. Specifically, we show how many journalists considered addressing the question of whether racialized men are overrepresented as perpetrators to be a way of avoiding complicity with politicians and other powerful actors who allegedly avoid sensitive questions about race and migration.

Following a discussion of existing literature on racialized stereotyping in the press, we detail the methods of the empirical research. Subsequently, the first data analysis section shows how Dutch newspapers linked street harassment to racialized men. The main data analysis section draws from interviews with journalists and the actors they reported on to analyze how journalists’ professional practices and norms contributed to the prevalence of racialized framings of street harassment. Based on these findings, we propose “apprehension of political correctness” as a contribution to the literature on journalistic practice and racial stereotyping in the press.

Racialized Representations of Sexual Violence and Harassment in the Media

Depictions of racialized men as perpetrators of sexual violence are ubiquitous in media reporting in Europe. Such stereotypes have been used to justify racist violence such as colonization and lynching (Collins 2004, 23; Davis 1981), and contribute to polarization and prejudicial attitudes towards migrants and racialized people (Boomgaarden and Vliegenthart, 2009; Czymara and Dochow 2018). Recent debates on the headscarf, genital mutilation, and violence against LGBTQIA+ people all pivot around sexuality within discourse on the supposed failures of multiculturalism and incompatibility of “Western” culture with that of certain migrants (Downing and Husband 2005; Farris 2017; Ticktin 2008).

Harassment and violence in public space are among the main issues arising in media representations of racialized men as perpetrators of sexual violence. Wigger, Yendell, and Herbert (2022) demonstrated that, following the sexual aggressions at Cologne station on New Year’s Eve 2015–2016, European debates on migration shifted from concerns about terrorism to anxieties about sexual predation. In German newspapers, the practice of citing origins of perpetrators of sexual violence—notably, the individuals’ migration background and refugee status—increased following this event (Meltzer 2023). Scholarship on media coverage of street harassment—which in public debates and the scholarly literature mostly refers to non-physical aggressions—is scarce. Mishra (2020), Simões and Silveirinha (2022), and Mowri and Bailey (2023) highlight the prevalence of “non-issue frames” that portray street harassment as “harmless” and “irrelevant.” And yet, little empirical research exists on the media’s representation of perpetrators of street harassment and how it ties to racialization.

Scholarly Explanations of Racialized Stereotyping in the Press

An explanation of the production of racialized framings requires analysis beyond published news content (Schlesinger 1990). However, research examining journalists’ actual work and the production processes behind racialized framings in the press is quite limited. As Van Dijk notes about racist narratives in mass media, “we as yet barely have insight into the details of these news production processes” (2012, 21). Thus far, scholarship has proposed two major causes of racialized stereotyping in mass media: either journalists’ passive reproduction of popular racial stereotypes; (2) or the commercialization of the press.

As for the first cause, scholars studying the racialization of gender inequality in the media (Farris 2017; Fassin 2006) find that journalists internalize stereotypes about racialized men as sexually dangerous, causing them to invoke this category in debates on crime and delinquency (Cottle 2000; Mucchielli 2005). Van Dijk points at “the biased attitudes of reporters or editors themselves” (2012, 18) and how their “mental models” of events cause them to be “ethnically biased by negative social representations about the Others” (2012, 21). Such racist bias must be understood in the context of institutional racism and the disproportionate control of mainstream media by white people (Oliver 2017). The political claims of social movements standing up for the rights of racialized people, such as Black Lives Matter, tend to provoke a sense of racial threat and competition on the part of white journalists (Updegrove et al. 2020). Media coverage of racialized people, especially when it concerns their political claims, is likely to reflect and support the status quo (Reid and Craig 2021). Hall observed that the mass media, as “part of the dominant means of ideological production,” tend to reproduce racism as “one of the most profoundly ‘naturalised’ of existing ideologies” (1995, 19). Hall et al. highlight how racialized stereotypes often find their way into the media because of journalists’ passive reproduction of the framings of “primary definers”—state institutions, politicians, and others with the power to impose their definition of a problem (1978, 59). In a similar vein, Van Dijk highlights how racialized stereotypes are often “uncritically reproduced” by journalists relaying the discourse of opinion leaders (2012, 18).

As for the second cause, scholars highlight how the media’s increasingly commercial nature nurtures a demand for lively personalities and reporting styles, which tends to favor the racializing discourses of right-wing populists (De Jonge 2019, 203; Mazzoleni 2008, 50). Since the 1960s, media outlets across Europe have become more independent from political parties, churches, and trade unions. This shift led journalists to adhere less to considerations by a third party about topics that are inappropriate or dangerous and should thus not be reported on (Ellinas 2018, 211). The transition to market-oriented journalism also led to increased consideration for the interests of the general public as the consumer. Market pressures incentivize the media to produce entertaining reports rather than disseminate ideas or create social consensus (Hallin and Mancini 2004, 277).

This article discusses the merits of these two accounts of racialized framings in the press in the context of our analysis of reporting on street harassment. However, these accounts also have their limitations and overlook other factors that might contribute to racial stereotyping in the media, such as the extensive criticisms of being politically correct that journalists and politicians have in recent years been subjected to.

Apprehension of Political Correctness in Europe and the Netherlands

Since the 1990s, criticism of political correctness has come to play a central role in debates on gender-based inequality and violence around Europe.² Although the term was also used positively to signal the need for caution against language that could be instrumentalized for racist purposes by the radical right, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it became progressively negatively coded (Newfield 2018).

This concern about political correctness was expressed against a backdrop of the increasingly interrelated struggles for women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights and stricter immigration policies and nationalist political agendas. Analyses of this trend can be found in the literature on sexual democracy (Fassin 2006) and femonationalism (Farris 2017). For example, prominent French intellectual Élisabeth Badinter accused “le féminisme bien-pensant” (well-thinking feminism) of refusing to recognize problems related to gender inequality among the racialized French (2003, 106). Similarly, in the wake of the 2015–2016 sexual assaults in Cologne, numerous Danish newspapers stated that “political correctness” prevented authorities and media from exposing the sexual threat posed by male migrants (Leine, Mikkelsen, and Sen 2020, 190).

The Netherlands constitutes a strategic case to study the effects that such critiques of political correctness have on people’s behavior because it spotlighted gender in debates on citizenship and migration before other European countries (Tonkens and Duyvendak 2016). According to Fassin, “Dutch national identity opened up a political space that was to be imitated throughout Europe” (2006, 518). Since the late 1990s, numerous right-wing and left-wing Dutch politicians and intellectuals expressed skepticism about the multiculturalist ideal in which different groups could harmoniously coexist. Radical-right leaders such as Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders employed a “new realistic” discourse (Prins 2002). To effectively combat gender-based violence and inequality, they argued, the Netherlands should not let an apprehension of reproducing stigmas prevent “naming” how the culture of specific groups—Dutch Muslims especially—threatens women’s and LGBT+ rights. Fortuyn called the emancipation of “women and gays” “the biggest mental and cultural achievement in the history of mankind” (1997, 69–70) and accused the “political establishment” of “sweeping things under the rug” (1997, 11).

Dutch right-wing parties—notably Leefbaar Rotterdam (“Livable Rotterdam;” a right-wing populist political party, formerly led by Fortuyn), VVD (the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy; a conservative-liberal political party), and the PVV (Party for Freedom, a radical right party founded by Geert Wilders)—became agenda-setters on LGBTQIA+ and women’s rights issues, especially when these issues could be linked to migration and the integration of Muslims. The VVD and Leefbaar Rotterdam were also active agenda-setters on street harassment, concentrating their efforts on the introduction of regulation.

By identifying how this increased concern with political correctness informs journalists’ work, we contribute to research on political correctness and news production. Scholarship on press coverage of public debates about political correctness shows how conservative media corporations align themselves with right-wing parties in framing political correctness as a threat coming from the political left (Johnson, Culpeper, and Suhr 2003; Whitney and Wartella 1992)—for instance, in presenting climate change concerns as a result of left-wing political correctness rather than scientific research (McKnight 2010). Others identify political correctness as a harmful influence on journalism, preventing reporters from challenging assumptions that drive mainstream political forces (Pilger 1996). However, whether journalists are themselves afraid of being politically correct and how this informs their professional practices remains understudied and undertheorized. Scholars argue that the perception that political correctness is a threat to journalistic objectivity may prevent reporters from critically writing about realities of oppression and social inequality (Hill and Thrasher 1994; Thiele 2021). However, these—rather sparse—accounts are based on critical reflection rather than empirical research that tests these hypotheses. This article fills this gap, by analyzing how journalists’ apprehension of political correctness shapes reporting practices and news output.

Data Collection and Methods

We analyzed all articles mentioning “straatintimidatie” (“street harassment”) in five major newspapers between 2012 and 2018, downloaded through LexisNexis. The sample consists of 190 articles collected from newspapers with a high print run, and thus likely to have influence on public opinion and policymakers, and diversity in political orientation. We selected three national publications: De Telegraaf (print run: 353,000; conservative orientation), NRC Handelsblad (202,097; center-left), and De Volkskrant (210,685; left-wing). As many debates on street harassment concerned specific cities, we also analyzed the largest local newspaper for the two cities that were the main focus of media debates: AD Rotterdam (297,823; centrist) for Rotterdam and Het Parool (41,571; center-left) for Amsterdam.

The qualitative content analysis aimed at identifying “diagnostic framings” of street harassment, which concern how this problem is represented and how victims and perpetrators are designated (Snow and Benford, 1992). We applied the method of inductive category development (Mayring, 2004) through a step-by-step process. The first author analyzed 50 newspaper articles, without any a priori categories, to identify several recurring themes (codes). During this process, some initial codes were split into multiple codes and others were merged together. At 50 articles, saturation was reached, as no new categories for describing the problem were found. The codes were then stabilized and clustered as constituting specific diagnostic frames of the problem, one of which was what we call the racialized framing (the others, not discussed in this article, were feminist, individualized, anti-stigma, and minimizing framings).

We follow Entman in conceiving of frames as involving the selection of specific elements of a perceived reality “in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and or treatment/recommendation for the item described” (1993, 52). We build on Balibar’s (2007, 85) definition of racialization as not necessarily presuming physical features, but as a process of locking people into cultural groups with essential characteristics, such as their proneness to commit gender-based violence (Bonjour and Duyvendak, 2018). Consequently, we use the term “racialized frames” to refer to representations of street harassment as being about (1) the ethno-racial identity of the perpetrator, (2) underprivileged neighborhoods, (3) intercultural conflict, and/or (4) the understanding of which is hampered by “political correctness.” These four themes corresponded to the codes we associated to the racialized framing.

We used these revised categories to code the whole corpus, including re-coding of the 50 previously coded articles. For each article, we coded whether one or multiple of the codes associated to one of the five diagnostic framings was present. If a code associated to the racialized framing was present in an article, we listed it as containing a racialized framing. This allowed us to compare the prevalence of racialized framings of street harassment between newspapers and periods.

To strengthen the qualitative content analysis, we also conducted a frequency analysis of terms and expressions in the corpus and compared those for each year between 2012 and 2018. We divided the frequency of a term by the number of articles in the national corpus to arrive at the average number of mentions per article.

To understand how specific framings were produced, however, we could not restrict our analysis to printed content without analyzing the production processes behind the finished product (Schlesinger, 1990, 66). The first author therefore interviewed eleven journalists working for the newspapers included in the content analysis (see supplementary materials). For each newspaper, an interview was conducted with the one or two reporters who published the most articles on street harassment and one editor responsible for the section publishing the most articles on street harassment. These journalists all identified as white, while eight identified as woman and three as man. The interviews touched on the following topics: why they started reporting on street harassment, their source selection, and how they dealt with key issues, such as the ethno-racial identity of harassers. Interviewees were also asked to compare past and present journalistic practices. Interview data was similarly coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti. All interviewees gave their consent for being quoted verbatim and were anonymized.

The data was gathered in the context of a larger study on the politicization of street harassment, consisting of 39 interviews with politicians, policymakers, activists, and scholars involved with the issue of street harassment, many of which journalists spoke to as sources. Moreover, the first author conducted around 100 hours of observations of meetings involving these actors; and analyzed 119 policy, activist, and research documents. This allowed us to analyze how framings developed through journalists’ interaction with other actors and why some of them were more successful in accessing the media. This research was approved by the AISSR Ethics Advisory Board.

Racialization in Dutch Reporting on Street Harassment

In our Dutch corpus, the term “street harassment” (straatintimidatie) appears for the first time in 2014. In the years that followed, press coverage frequently linked street harassment to the race and/or migration background of men who harass and/or are suspected of harassing. In 64% of articles (122 out of 190), one of the manually applied codes associated to the racialized framing was present: 65 times for ethno-racial identifiers of perpetrators, 48 for underprivileged neighborhoods, 27 for intercultural conflict, and 52 for political correctness (many articles contained multiples of these codes). The prevalence of racialized framings can be further observed through a variety of criteria illustrated by the frequency analysis of terms and expressions.

As for frequently mentioned actors, Dutch right-wing parties that racialized the issue and argued for repressive policies—most notably the VVD and Leefbaar Rotterdam—were more frequently mentioned than their left-wing counterparts (Figures 1 and 2). The only frequently mentioned left-leaning politician was MP Ahmed Marcouch of the PvdA (Labor Party), who proposed a national law on street harassment and repeatedly suggested that most perpetrators were racialized youth. Journalists relayed many statements by these parties on the overrepresentation of racialized youth.

Figure 1. Most frequently mentioned parties in Dutch corpus.

Figure 2. Most frequently mentioned people in Dutch corpus.

In the Dutch corpus, there were also many explicit references to ethno-racial identifiers of harassers. To arrive at the overview provided in Figure 3, we counted all occurrences of terms for non-Western countries (e.g., marokka-), religion, and migration status. Subsequently, we checked to see if each occurrence referred to a harasser’s identity or something else. For example, occurrences of marokka- sometimes referred to activists in Morocco rather than a Moroccan ethnicity of harassers in the Netherlands. Frequently mentioned categories with respect to the identity of a harasser were “Moroccan” (mentioned on average 0.205 times per article) and “Islam/Muslim” (0.063 times per article).

Figure 3. Average mention of ethno-racial identifiers in Dutch corpus.

While some news reports explicitly named harassment a problem created primarily by racialized men, more often this framing was produced through the use of specific words and examples of “street harassment”—many of which were popularized by right-wing parties Leefbaar Rotterdam and the VVD. In an interview with NRC (Rueb 2016), Amsterdam VVD councilmember Dilan Yesilgöz stated that her proposal for a local ordinance “should be seen as a ban on straatterreur (“street terror”), a term introduced by Dutch radical right politician Geert Wilders to speak about aggressive behavior of Turkish-Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch youth. Another frequent implicitly racialized term was sisverbod (“hissing ban”). According to many journalists and politicians that the first author interviewed, hissing is mostly associated with North African men. The term na-ge-sis-t-sen (“hissing at”), mentioned 238 times in the corpus, was the most frequently listed act of harassment, followed by na-roepen (“catcalling”) mentioned 155 times and na-fluiten (“whistling at”) mentioned 100 times. Moreover, the problem was often spatialized through examples focusing on racialized youth in underprivileged areas.

Racialized framings were also produced by journalists’ linkage of street harassment and specific events. The 2015–2016 sexual aggressions in Cologne were frequently referenced in the Dutch media, with Cologne mentioned 43 times (0.23 times per article). The term “culture” was used mainly to refer to perceived misogyny of specific groups of racialized men (35 out of 52 mentions of “culture”), but rarely to speak about society as a whole using terms, such as “rape culture” and “sexist culture” (2/52). While some articles clearly suggested street harassment was a problem mainly caused by specific groups, others treated this more as an important point for debate.

Explaining the Production of Racialized Frames

The women journalists interviewed stated more often that their own experience as victims motivated them to write on this topic. This illustrates how gender informs journalists’ reporting practices (Armstrong 2004). Nonetheless, both women and men journalists produced articles that linked street harassment to race and migration. Gender therefore cannot fully account for this, and we need a more institutional explanation for why journalists produced racialized framings.

Racialization in the Media: Passive Reproduction of Racial Stereotypes?

Only one journalist interviewed by the first author, from conservative newspaper De Telegraaf, stated that she was convinced that men belonging to specific ethno-racial minorities were overrepresented as perpetrators of street harassment. The majority stated they were conflicted about this or that they disagreed with this view. While the internalization of stereotypes about racialized men as sexually dangerous may play a role in racialized framings (Van Dijk 2012, 21), this finding illustrates the need for a more institutionally contextualized understanding that accounts for journalists’ professional norms and practices. The relationship between journalists and their sources is one such important factor.

Journalists indicated that because the VVD and Leefbaar Rotterdam—the right-wing parties that put the issue on the political agenda in Amsterdam and Rotterdam—repeatedly linked street harassment to migration, they felt obligated to address the link in some way. Journalists’ professional profiles to some degree explain this “followism” (Hall et al., 1978). Because the issue first emerged in the two city councils, it was mostly picked up by reporters covering local politics. Local politicians, such as Leefbaar Rotterdam alderman Eerdmans and councilmember Tanya Hoogwerf and VVD Amsterdam council member Yesilgöz, were regular sources on various topics. In our interview, an NRC journalist said: “I heard all the time from people in the field that it’s about loitering youth of color.” An AD reporter stated:

As a political reporter, I followed that because Eerdmans was working on it. … The Leefbaar Alderperson led it, and the research was initiated by a councilmember of that party. That made them the designated people to call for thoughts on policies. … Through them I often encountered the idea that it was about loitering youth … They often linked it to migration from Morocco and Turkey.

Thus, the interviews confirmed Hall et al.’s followism thesis: that journalists tend to rely on sources recognized as authoritative on the issue they are reporting on (Harjuniemi 2023). As discussed above, Dutch right-wing and radical right parties had in the preceding decades developed an increasingly agenda-setting position on a variety of issues related to gender-based inequality and violence. Journalists treated these actors as primary definers because of the latter’s visible profile on issues of gender-based violence in general, as well as their active agenda-setting on street harassment.

Commercialization as a Cause of Racialized Stereotyping?

Here we review the evidence for the commercialization thesis: that the demand for “lively” personalities and reporting styles to attract consumers favors the racializing discourses of right-wing populists (De Jonge 2019, 203; Mazzoleni 2008, 50). Dutch journalists did in fact refer to the need to make their articles lively and easy to understand to attract readers. For this reason, they deemed it important to capture the viewpoints of perpetrators. Some journalists recounted how their editors asked them to gather statements from the accused. This was not always easy, especially because they needed to find sources on short notice. An AD journalist explained:

We wanted to hear from these men and boys: why do they do it? … Our deadline was that afternoon. We discussed how we could find them. My colleague said: it often happens to me in Oud-Crooswijk,³ there’s lots of groups there. We were in a hurry, so we said: OK, let’s go! … Then we were lucky: there was this group, mostly Dutch-Moroccan youth … For us it was an ideal situation. They explained what kinds of things they say, whistling, why they accost women.

This excerpt illustrates how journalists’ need to quickly find sources to comment on behavior for which many men might feel ashamed reinforced their reliance on stereotypes about harassers. Two commonly identified effects of increased commercialization of the press—strong deadline pressure in covering daily events (Paulussen 2012) and an expectation that reports are “lively” to attract consumers (Mazzoleni 2008)—encouraged Dutch journalists to rely on (racial) stereotypes to find sources.

Their use of the term sisverbod (“hissing ban”) also exemplifies how the desire to use popular terms led journalists to employ language that left-wing political parties such as GroenLinks (“Green-left”) and anti-racism activists deemed stigmatizing. Although a reporter for the center-left newspaper Het Parool was ambivalent about the term, as hissing is mostly associated with North African men, she indicated that it was preferable because it was simple and catchy: “Street harassment ('straatintimidatie') is a very complex term. What does that mean? ‘Ban on street harassment’ is very long, and you want to make it lively.”

These findings confirm reports in the literature on how commercialization of the press pushes journalists to publish more provocative pieces instead of avoiding “inappropriate” or “dangerous” content (Ellinas 2018, 211). However, commercialization alone does not sufficiently explain why this provocation took on a racializing form. For instance, commercialization could also logically lead to the publication of more stories about the difficulties migrants face, which could be equally provocative. The explanation of why “shock” stories focused on racialized perpetrators hinges on a unique dynamic that makes journalists inclined to racialize. Journalists’ personal stereotypes and followism with respect to primary definers are such factors. In addition, another key factor became apparent during our data analysis: their apprehension of political correctness.

Relaying Racialized Framings Out of Apprehension of Political Correctness

Although many journalists expressed reservations about the idea that street harassment is primarily a problem of racialized men, reporters for both conservative and left-leaning newspapers posed the question to their sources. By asking whether certain ethno-racial profiles were overrepresented among harassers, journalists gave right-wing parties the opportunity to link street harassment to migration and encouraged others to offer an opinion on the matter.

For example, a project leader for the sexuality expertise center Qpido stated in our interview: “Every time, journalists pulled me in this direction: is it more frequent with this target group?” A member of the activist organization Stop Straatintimidatie (“Stop Street Harassment”) told the first author she experienced similar pressure: “They ask ‘Oh you live in [Amsterdam] West, you say it bothers you more in West. Who lives there? Who are they?’” When, in a report for the City of Rotterdam, researcher Tamar Fischer did not produce data on the ethno-racial profile of harassers, a reporter for De Volkskrant said to her: “The municipality did additional research about the origins of harassers. Supposedly they are often of Moroccan and Antillean-Aruban origin. Why didn’t you ask this question yourself?” (Dirks 2017). A journalist for AD asked the same question: “Isn’t that too politically correct? That is the image, that it is about men of allochthonous⁴ origin” (Kooyman 2017). Consequently, almost all newspaper articles in this survey pivoted on the debate of whether street harassment was related to migration.

Still, the question remains: why did journalists consistently return to ethno-racial overrepresentation as an important line of inquiry, instead of ignoring or openly criticizing the racialized framings of right-wing parties? On why he pressed Fischer, the aforementioned DeVolkskrant journalist expressed not wanting to be complicit with actors who explicitly avoid that issue:

You can be too politically correct by not mentioning certain elements. That’s complicated, whether you should cite the ethnicity of perpetrators and whether there is overrepresentation of certain groups. That’s very sensitive, and you must be careful about that. But pretending it doesn’t exist at all is perhaps not the right answer either.

A reporter working for Het Parool acknowledged that migration and race are sensitive issues to be treated accordingly. Refusing to address them, however, would be a professional error in her opinion.

You should be careful with that. If you don’t have hard facts about it occurring more frequently in certain minority groups, you shouldn’t suggest that it does based on anecdotal evidence. At the same time, it’s complicated; you can very quickly be reproached for looking away, because there are people who do have the experience that it happens more often with guys of Moroccan or Turkish or Antillean background. … I notice that in the media and for our newspaper, it’s a question: is that the case?

Many journalists were simultaneously apprehensive of reproducing stigmas and of being politically correct, thus constantly balancing the two apprehensions. To avoid reducing journalists’ stance—whether as kowtowing to right-wing sources or as producing racialized stereotyping because of unreflective passivity—explanations of racialized stereotyping must consider reflections on professional ethics (Drew 2011; Lemieux 2000, 50; Schlesinger 1990, 67). Many Dutch journalists were mindful of the risk of reproducing stereotypes. Nonetheless, they found that refusing to address the question of overrepresentation of racialized men as perpetrators to be a contradiction of the professional norm of not avoiding sensitive questions about race and migration.

Journalists explained that their newspaper guidelines encouraged them to reflect on whether mentioning identifiers of perpetrators of harassment was desirable. The guidelines for De Volkskrant and NRC, for instance, stipulated that the ethnic origins or skin color of a person should not be mentioned by default, but that it may be relevant in specific contexts. None of these guidelines prohibited reporters from mentioning this information. The NRC guidelines encouraged journalists to justify their choices in their article: “Mention of ethnic origin may be relevant in stories about certain topics (employment, crime, culture, et cetera). The article should then make clear as much as possible why (mention of) ethnicity may be relevant” (NRC 2023, 38). Consequently, journalists were given the freedom to decide whether they found it relevant to mention identifiers of harassers.⁵

Journalists were encouraged by their editorial board to reflect on whether they were being politically correct. This is further illustrated by numerous reflections within Dutch newspapers, such as the article “Are newspapers politically correct about Cologne?” by the ombudswoman for De Volkskrant.

The fear of political correctness is palpable within the editorial board. A story about German feminists was at first discouraged by the chief editor. Their message—“we only start worrying about sexual violence against women now that the perpetrators are asylum seekers”—would tilt the “balance too much in the direction of minimization,” he feared. The reporter defended the choice: “It’s a hot topic and an interesting viewpoint from a journalistic perspective.” Their viewpoint is an “essential part of the debate in Germany.” Some shivers about political correctness is not a problem, it keeps everyone sharp and contributes to the cherished balance. But it shouldn’t lead to some stories not getting into the paper or denying a political dimension. Then one part of reality is equally covered-up and “political correctness” simply changes color—the mechanism remains the same. But the newspaper isn’t there yet. The piece about German feminists was on Wednesday’s page 4 (Kranenberg 2016).

In addition, many journalists referred to “disgruntled” readers when explaining why they were mindful of political correctness. An AD reporter, for example, referred to a reader’s letter published in the AD under the headline: “According to reader Den Hartog, the photo [showing bricklayers] accompanying Saturday’s article on street harassment is misleading.”

What an incredibly misleading photo in the opinion article on street harassment. The target group that hisses at women and calls them “whore” or “slut” absolutely does not involve the category of bricklayers. As many readers, you know damn well where it comes from. If you walk late at night on the Lijnbaan,⁶ just like any woman, you’ll know well enough. Afraid to stigmatize? Afraid of reactions? Very cowardly, I’m sorry to say. (Den Hartog 2015)

Whereas Van Dijk suggests that journalists “are hardly used to published criticism (indeed, which newspaper publishes critical reports about the press, let alone about racism in the press?)” (2012, 19), the journalists interviewed stated they took such criticisms seriously. This is further illustrated by the decision of editorial boards to publish such letters submitted by disgruntled readers. Pressure to avoid political correctness can thus be reinforced by concern for the opinion of the public as consumer, as described in studies on the commercialization of the press.

Theorizing Apprehension of Political Correctness in Journalism Scholarship

Apprehension of political correctness is inextricably intertwined with its antipode: apprehension of reproducing stigmas, which the first author theorizes in an earlier publication (Dekker 2023). Whereas the latter concerns the desire to avoid stereotyping others as having a low social status (Lamont et al. 2017: 6–7), we define apprehension of political correctness as a preoccupation that is reactive: anxiety about inappropriately abiding by social conventions of restraint on public expression, which makes one unable to say things as they are. In the case of street harassment, anxiety about reproducing stigmas was thought to prevent people from specifying how race or migration background may play a role in why men commit harassment.

The theory of an apprehension of political correctness provides a new angle for scholarship on why journalists reproduce racialized representations of sexual violence and other social problems. It allows us to see that racialization does not necessarily rely on journalists’ personal convictions about whether a social problem is inherently linked to race and migration. Although accusations of political correctness mainly came from the right initially, over time they became a self-preoccupation for journalists and political actors associated with the left. In expressing this apprehension, journalists sought to distance themselves from powerful actors in the field as well as from what they defined as a professional error by journalists of the past.

First, journalists sought to distance themselves from powerful, mostly left-wing, actors who allegedly avoided these sensitive issues. In the literature on primary definers, racial stereotyping is defined as resulting from complicity between journalists and right-wing actors (Hall 1995; Van Dijk 2012). However, our findings show that journalists considered addressing the overrepresentation of racialized men among perpetrators as avoiding complicity with powerful actors who supposedly avoided discussing this sensitive issue. This apprehension was articulated in terms of a common role conception among journalists: a “professional duty of mistrust” toward their sources (Lemieux 2000, 149).

Second, apprehension of political correctness was about wanting to avoid what journalists perceived as professional errors from the past.⁷ In our interviews, they suggested that in previous decades, journalists might have been guilty of violating journalistic integrity by “looking the other way” too often. The “shock event” (Van Dooremalen 2021) of the electoral victory of radical right politician Fortuyn, in 2001, was repeatedly invoked as proof that journalists had previously ignored problems related to migration that were on voters’ minds. Categorizing political correctness as a professional failure influenced how many journalists came to define what it meant to be “objective” or “neutral” (Hartley and Askanius 2021; Robinson and Culver 2019). However, a desire to avoid the “political correctness” of previous decades does not necessarily imply that journalists in the past were indeed being politically correct. This apprehension was articulated in reference to a bygone era in which professional practices were deemed deficient. Whether this “collective trauma” was invented or not is an important question that has been discussed (Tonkens and Duyvendak 2016).

The concept of apprehension builds on blame avoidance research (Howlett 2012; Weaver 1986), but differs from this notion in its emphasis on morality in addition to instrumental strategy. Weaver argues that actors such as policymakers and politicians are led not only by the desire to claim credit or pursue good policy, but also to avoid blame for some wrongdoing. Avoiding political correctness was sometimes a strategic concern, for example when journalists wanted to preempt accusations of avoiding sensitive questions by readers or colleagues on the editorial board because such accusations could harm their personal reputation. In this vein, scholars point out how worries about political correctness cover up fears about losing white male privilege (Scott 1991, 37; Thiele 2021). Yet, expressions of concerns about avoiding sensitive questions regarding race and migration cannot be reduced to the logic of opportunism and strategic interest as captured by the term “blame avoidance.” Dutch journalists also spoke of political correctness as a moral concern relating to professional standards: reporting on street harassment without raising the question of whether there is an overrepresentation of racialized men was, for them, not characteristic of a professional journalist.

Apprehensions are moral emotions as conceptualized by Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta (2004, 422). As such, the concept builds on and is a contribution to emerging research on journalism and emotion (Beckett and Deuze 2016; Kotisova 2019; Richards and Rees 2011). As most other emotions (Hochschild, 1983; Jasper 2011), they are shaped by cultural understandings and norms. Our qualification of concerns about political correctness as emotions does not imply that these are irrational. As moral emotions, apprehensions are based on reflections about the world and our place in it, and concern judgments about our own and others’ behavior.⁸

Conclusion

Including this apprehension of political correctness into our analysis contributes to an explanation of the accommodating behaviors of Dutch journalists towards the racialized framings of the radical right (De Jonge 2019). Until the early 2000s, most Dutch journalists employed a “demarcation” strategy toward radical right movements, portraying them as dangerous and denying their access to public broadcasts (Art 2011). In the 2000s, self-criticism for supposed complicity with the political establishment—in turning a blind eye on immigration-related problems became a recurring theme among Dutch journalists. This contributed to a journalism culture (Hanitzsch 2007) that became more accommodating of sources who apply racialized framings, while becoming more confrontational toward actors in the field who supposedly avoid such sensitive issues. Today, “there is a great drive among Dutch journalists to address uncomfortable issues to avoid creating any taboos” (De Jonge 2019, 200). In the case of street harassment, this general trend was reinforced by the specific way in which this issue was politicized in the Netherlands. An initiation of various policy proposals by right-wing parties employing a racialized frame made it hard for journalists to categorically refuse to address discussions on the supposed overrepresentation of racialized men as perpetrators.

This explorative study has several limitations and calls for more research on how this apprehension influences journalists and other actors involved in public problems, especially drawing comparisons between (1) journalists’ identities, (2) countries, (3) newspapers and newspaper sections, and (4) periods.

As for the first, we did not find significant differences in terms of racialization or apprehension of political correctness according to journalists’ gender. Because the journalists who published most articles on street harassment at all selected newspapers were all white, our sample only includes white respondents. This reflects the underrepresentation of racialized journalists in mainstream Dutch media (CBS 2020). White journalists have been shown to be more likely to reproduce racialized stereotypes than their racialized colleagues (Drew 2011; Robinson and Culver 2019), which may lead us to expect that racialized journalists tend to be less apprehensive of political correctness. However, in light of findings on how journalists belonging to minority groups are often suspected of being partial advocates for the interests of their “own group” (Hartley and Askanius 2021), how apprehension of political correctness informs the work of racialized journalists is an interesting avenue for future research.

As for the second, a limitation of this study is its focus on one national context in which many journalists did produce racial stereotypes about street harassment. Cross-national comparison, notably with contexts characterized by lower racialized stereotyping, can provide insight into the effects of various institutional factors (e.g., agenda-setting, political power relations) on journalists’ concerns surrounding political correctness.

Third, as this article has focused on similarities in how journalists working for various Dutch newspapers dealt with this question, it might have given a rather homogeneous picture. An interesting avenue for future research is therefore to compare the degree and effects of apprehension of political correctness in different types of newspapers (i.e., conservative/progressive leaning) and between different sections of the newspaper (i.e., local politics, society, foreign news).

Finally, this article did not discuss changes over time, which may create the false impression of stability in journalists’ professional practices and norms regarding questions of race. On the contrary, journalists’ reflections and newspapers’ regulations are constantly evolving in a context characterized by increasing debate and awareness of racism. Journalists justified avoidance of political correctness as a correction to perceived failures in previous journalistic practice. Such regulatory principles guiding the journalistic profession change over time (Lemieux 2000, 64), and the importance that journalists attached to avoiding political correctness may come to be perceived as exaggerated. Moreover, anti-racist social movements and vocabularies play an increasingly central role in Dutch public debates. This is a consequence of, among others, the Black Lives Matter movement and mobilization against the tradition of Black Pete (Zwarte Piet)—a blackface character in the St. Nicholas celebration (Ghorashi 2020, 2). As a result, an important question for future research is how recent anti-racist social movements impact journalists’ apprehensions: do they increase their apprehension of reproducing stigmas at the detriment of apprehension of political correctness, and how does this impact their professional practices?

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for Journalism Studies, as well as the members of the Political Sociology group (University of Amsterdam), the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d’études sur les réflexivités (EHESS), and the Centre for Sociological Research (KU Leuven) for their insightful comments, which greatly helped to improve the article. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or KU Leuven. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris) and the University of Amsterdam through a PhD-grant; Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action under [grant number 101065519].

Notes

1 More than alternatives such as “of color,” the term “racialized” allows sociologists to conceive of “race” as something constructed but with real social consequences (Barot and Bird, 2001, 613). The concept does not reconcile the variety of meanings that actors attach to the term “race”—a term we purposefully leave ambiguous in this article.

2 Earlier usage of the term can be found in the United States, where it gained popularity in the 1990s through criticism of the diversification of university curriculums by conservatives. These critics associated “political correctness” with former communist countries, which condemned those who deviated from the party doctrine (Newfield 2018).

3 Oud-Crooswijk is a working-class neighborhood in Rotterdam.

4 “Allochtoon” is a common catchall Dutch term used to refer to migrants and their descendants, literally meaning “emerging from another soil.” Its antonym is “autochtoon,” which refers to the group considered “ethnic Dutch.”

5 Although articles 2.88-5 and 3.5-3 of the Dutch Press Code stipulate that public and private media services must sanction reporters who incite violence or hatred, it does not prohibit mentions of ethno-racial identifiers of suspected perpetrators, nor does it specify conditions under which this is appropriate or not (Dutch Government 2008). Each of the five newspapers that we analyzed mentioned guidelines for language use, which have changed over time. For instance, in 2016, De Volkskrant and NRC included a statement in their guidelines that the term “allochtoon” was to be avoided because it is vague and stigmatizing, while terms such as “Moroccan-Dutch” or “Chinese-Dutch” were preferable (NRC 2023, 39; De Volkskrant 2021). AD and De Telegraaf continued using “allochtoon.”

6 A shopping street in the center of Rotterdam.

7 For this understanding of apprehensions relating to the desire to avoid what actors perceive as past errors, we draw on Stavo-Debauge’s (2012) work on “hantises” (French for obsessive fears).

8 Elsewhere, the first author provides a more detailed conceptualization of apprehensions within the sociology of emotions (Dekker 2023).