Reminder: A Child Is Not 'Illegitimate' : Editorial Guidance from the Managing Editor As an NPR public editor once observed, that's a "pejorative" birth label.

Editorial Guidance from the Managing Editor

Reminder: A Child Is Not 'Illegitimate'

June 17, 201910:25 AM ET

Mark Memmott

We agree with The Associated Press on this:

"Do not refer to the child of unmarried parents as illegitimate. If it is pertinent to the story at all, use an expression such as whose parents were not married."

In 2011, when he was NPR's public editor, Edward Schumacher-Matos wrote that "illegitimate" and other "pejorative birth labels attached to children were never fair."