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Guidance: On The President's Use Of The F-word

By Mark Memmott

Published April 18, 2019 at 1:22 PM EDT

We are not going to repeat on the air this quote attributed to President Trump in the Mueller report:

"I'm fucked."

When talking about it, we can clean up the quote by turning it into "I'm F-ed." But we will also need to make clear to listeners that he used the actual word.

Meanwhile, less is more. "I'm F-ed" and discussions of that quote do not need to be part of all our Mueller-related reports.

Note: online we write "I'm f***ed."

Mark Memmott

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.

See stories by Mark Memmott