Don't Taze Me Bro!

"Don't Taze Me Bro!"... those famous words forever changed the Taser stun gun from a trademarked name to a verb.
Just like Kleenex refers to a tissue, or Coke refers to a soda, Taz(s)e refers to an action.

When a Glendale, AZ school resource officer was unable to break up a fight between two 14 yr old boys, he chose to pull out his Taser and shock one of the boys in the back. Forget that part of the story for a moment.

What the police officer didn't know was that he was going to spark a debate in our newsroom that still has no clear resolution.

Is a person "tazed" or "tased"?

We had an interesting discussion on the topic. If you conduct a Google search, there is no consistency throughout newsrooms across the country. Some headlines refer to a person as being tased, others say tazed. CNN has both variations of the word listed on their website. So who is right?

In my newsroom, I argued that Taser with an "s" is a trademarked name for the weapon while tazer with a "z" refers to the action. I was in the minority. Our anchor Patti serves as the grammar police and she actually sided with me, however we were still in the minority. Since we couldn't come to a resolution we consulted Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute.
He presented an interesting response. Dialogue below:

On May 5, 2009, at 6:45 PM, Passman, Laurie wrote:
Hi Al-
We have an ongoing debate in our newsroom and I was hoping you could provide some resolution. We are discussing whether it is appropriate to refer to someone as being “tased” or “tazed”. One argument is that Taser is a registered trademark name and refers to the company. “Being tazed” is a verb referring to the action. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Al responded:
"I think if you got shot by a Taser you have been tased.
Remember, it is a made-up word anyway, but as long as we are making it up, it seems to me we should stick to the tradmarked name of the product that shot you, not pretend there is another kind of shock gun.

On the other hand, if you get shot by a Glock 9 did you get glocked?
If you get shot by a Beretta, did you get Beretta'ed?
Should we drop tased and explain what actually happened--police shot him with a 52,000 volt shock."

Regardless of who is right or wrong, and whether we truly have any resoltion on the matter, I am proud that our newsroom took the time out of our busy day to actually have the discussion in an effort to be accurate.

In an era when newsrooms are doing more with less, I am proud that we took the time to have a discussion as to which term is more accurate. Many people want to slam the media for being biased and having an agenda, when the truth is, we don't even have the time to form an agenda, much less run out to McD's for lunch. We just want to be accurate and present a good product.

As a side note, one of our competitors chose to use an FSG with the words "Student Zapped". This only makes me think that the kid was microwaved, which further diminishes the actions of the officer. Zapped? Isn't that what happens to bugs in a mid-western backyard? Tasers KILL people, so why would you demean the action and call a kid "Zapped"? I don't think the OTHER newsroom EVER had a discussion as to which term was accurate. Which brings us back full circle.

Regardless of whether the officer was right or wrong for using a stun gun on a kid, I am proud that our newsroom took the time to have a discussion in an effort to be accurate in covering a story. This dialogue challenges us to do better and think beyond the cliched language that has penetrated our culture...which in the end makes us better journalists.