Christopher Chavez > Quotes

“Despite the promise of linguistic diversity, NPR’s architects chose as its standard a way of speaking that is not overtly associated with any particular social group, but more broadly with the leveled dialects of the Northern Midwest… this notion of a relatively universal and socially unmarked standard makes privileged ways of speaking seem mainstream while marginalizing nonstandard dialects and speakers…”
― Christopher Chávez, The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public

“We must acknowledge that there is a certain kind of ideological work at play when journalists present people’s lives [as characters in stories]. People are complicated, fractious, and inconsistent.… But to create coherence out of incoherence, the writer must smooth out the rough edges they must simplify and typify.”
― Christopher Chavez, The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public