Here’s the second in our summer series sharing how-tos, tips and guides from the 2023-2024 Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellows. This week, we’re featuring Taylor Six, a criminal justice reporter at the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader. Taylor’s project won our fellowship’s People’s Choice award.
At first, journalist Taylor Six set out to build a guide for journalists to promote destigmatizing language when covering people with substance use disorders.
“For example, saying substance use disorder and not addiction, or testing positive for drugs instead of clean or dirty,” she said in an email.
But in sharing her own story of recovery, Six realized how prevalent it was in the industry. Her project about journalists and language became one for the journalists themselves.
