Take a look at this recent article in The Salt Lake Tribune:

NFL: Washington team says canceling trademark violates free-speech rights

McLean, Va. • A federal government decision to cancel the Washington NFL team’s trademark because it may be disparaging infringes on free-speech rights and unfairly singles the team out, lawyers argued in court papers filed Monday.

The team wants to overturn a decision last year by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to cancel Washington’s trademark on the grounds that it may be offensive to Native Americans…

Now compare that to the original Associated Press article:

Redskins: Canceling trademark violates free-speech rights

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — A federal government decision to cancel the Washington Redskins’ trademark because it may be disparaging infringes on free-speech rights and unfairly singles the team out, lawyers argued in court papers filed Monday.

The team wants to overturn a decision last year by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to cancel the Redskins’ trademark on the grounds that it may be offensive to Native Americans…

Spot the difference? The Trib’s staff apparently decided to expunge the very word that made the whole story newsworthy in the first place.

A quick Google search of the Trib’s first line pulls up a list of other outlets that ran the story. In the first three pages of results, every other publication went with the AP’s original text, including the word “Redskins.”

So what?

First of all, the Trib’s scrubbing of “Redskins” introduces sloppy inaccuracies. “Washington’s trademark” and “Washington’s logo” aren’t at issue. No one is arguing that Washington’s name is disparaging. The story is about an NFL team, not a U.S. state.

Of equal importance, deliberately introducing ambiguity, presumably to avoid causing offense, leaves readers who may be unfamiliar with the controversy very much in the dark.

Parallels can easily be drawn to how news media handled Charlie Hebdo’s “survivors’ issue” cover, an image of which I include below.

The cover, controversial for its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, was clearly newsworthy given the events that led to its creation. Yet many outlets, including the Associated Press and The New York Times, ran neither the cover nor relevant cartoons from previous issues of the magazine.

After the so-called survivors’ issue hit newsstands, selling 7 million copies, NYT’s public editor Margaret Sullivan took issue with her newsroom’s decision not to run it:

“The new cover image of Charlie Hebdo is an important part of a story that has gripped the world’s attention over the past week.

The cartoon itself, while it may disturb the sensibilities of a small percentage of Times readers, is neither shocking nor gratuitously offensive. And it has, undoubtedly, significant news value.

With Charlie Hebdo’s expanded press run of millions of copies for this post-attack edition, and a great deal of global coverage, the image is being seen, judged and commented on all over the world. Times readers should not have had to go elsewhere to find it.”

We grappled with similar issues at Religion News Service before and after the Paris attacks. In the end, we decided to run the survivors’ issue cover online. Why? Because it was so clearly and obviously newsworthy.

If an entire story focuses on a magazine cover, readers should be able to see it. Likewise, if an entire story focuses on the name of an American football team, readers shouldn’t have to poke around online to find out what that name is.

News values must trump fear of causing offense. Omitting key newsworthy facts, the name of a team in this case, is just bad journalism.

Note: I tried calling several reporters and editors at The Salt Lake Tribune just now but was unable to reach anyone for comment. I will happily update this post to include relevant comments from relevant Trib staff if they contact me by email.