Should people call them terrorists, activists or protesters?
A group of armed men stormed and occupied a national wildlife refuge in the U.S. state of Oregon on Saturday, an extraordinary incident that presented media outlets with a divisive challenge on how to describe the armed men and the action they took.
The New York Times called them "armed activists" and "militia men," but the Washington Post simply referred to them as "occupiers."
"A family previously involved in a showdown with the federal government has occupied a building at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon and is asking militia members to join them," reported the Associated Press.
Not one media outlet opted to use terms such as "insurrection," "revolt," anti-government "insurgents" or, "terrorists," as described by people on social media.
"When a group of unknown size and unknown firepower has taken over any federal building with plans and possibly some equipment to aid a years-long occupation — and when its representative tells reporters that they would prefer to avoid violence but are prepared to die — the kind of almost-uniform delicacy and the limits on the language used to describe the people involved becomes noteworthy itself," the Washington Post reported.
On the other hand, black Americans who were angry at the death of a 12-year-old boy at the hands of the police or the acquittal of George Zimmerman have been frequently and inaccurately grouped with criminals and have been described as "thugs."
Or if armed Muslims occupied a federal building, they could be called with "harsher, more-alarming labels," the Post said.
Ammon Bundy helped in organising the building occupation in Oregon. He is the son of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who had a standoff in 2014 with the government over grazing rights. The younger Bundy said the occupiers are armed and ready to die.
"You will note that while the group gathered in Oregon is almost assuredly all or nearly all white, that has scarcely been mentioned in any story," the Post noted.
Meanwhile, while the armed men occupied the building, Republican presidential candidates are keeping silent about the issue, another Washington Post report said.
The protesters are opposing the arson conviction of two Oregon ranchers in 2012. The ranchers were scheduled to report to federal prison on Monday. Many ranchers and land users in the West lease public land.
"I know a good federal compound for Bundy and his gang: a U.S. penitentiary," tweeted John Weaver, a senior strategist for the campaign of Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
The more conservative Republican bets previously asked the government to release more of the land it owns.
Last June, Sen. Rand Paul campaigned across Nevada and called for federal land to be transferred to states in the West.
"I understand the government owns a little bit of your land out here. Maybe we can rearrange that so the federal government is out of your hair," he said.
Bundy said he and Paul spoke for 15 to 20 minutes, which was denied by the senator.
"I did get to visit with him for several minutes in private," Bundy said.
Western state legislators unsuccessfully campaign for the federal land to be sold.
Legislators in Western states, in coordination with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, had campaigned unsuccessfully for the federal land to be sold. In his 2015 memoir "A Time for Truth." Sen. Ted Cruz described how he and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) bonded over the issue before Cruz began running for the Senate.
"There is no reason for the federal government to own huge portions of any state," Cruz recalled in his 2015 memoir "A Time for Truth."
In 2014, during the Bundy ranch standoff, Paul and Cruz said an important principal was at stake while candidates Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump expressed support for Bundy.
