The Guardian - Profanity in Articles

Profanity in Articles

The Guardian has received criticism for allowing journalists and readers to post profanity in articles and, in particular, comments. The newspaper does not alter or remove any of these expletive words posted by readers unless it is hate speech or the words are considered racist. On 14 April 2010, in an article entitled 'Is there too much bad language in the Guardian', David Marsh wrote that the word fuck (and its variants) had appeared 705 times in the previous year, with a further 269 mentions in The Observer. The word cunt, still regarded by many people as taboo, is also allowed.

The Guardian offers the following advice:

We are more liberal than any other newspapers, using language that our competitors would not. But even some readers who agree with Lenny Bruce that "take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government" might feel that we sometimes use such words unnecessarily. The editor's guidelines are as follows: First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend. Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it. Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a cop-out.