Slate provides a guide to the thicket of stylistic and political issues that face newspapers and magazines confronted with a city or country that has changed its name. Burma's ruling military junta changed the country's official (English) name to Myanmar back in 1989; some publications, like the New York Times, went along with the change immediately, others made the switch in later years, while others still prefer to stick with Burma, the name by which most English-speaking people still know the country.
The Economist got itself into a tangle over this last year during its coverage of the monks' protests. The magazine has used the name Myanmar for as long as I can remember (its style guide states: "Where names are officially altered… the change should be respected.") Yet finding itself with a Burma/Myanmar cover story, quite possibly for the first time since the name change, the magazine plumped for "Burma's saffron revolution" as its cover line, presumably on the basis that the marginal Economist reader, idly browsing the current affairs section in WH Smith, was likely to be turned off by the unfamiliar ring of "Myanmar." Nevertheless, the magazine stuck rigidly to its style guide inside, where there was nary a "Burma" to be seen.
The Economist got itself into a tangle over this last year during its coverage of the monks' protests. The magazine has used the name Myanmar for as long as I can remember (its style guide states: "Where names are officially altered… the change should be respected.") Yet finding itself with a Burma/Myanmar cover story, quite possibly for the first time since the name change, the magazine plumped for "Burma's saffron revolution" as its cover line, presumably on the basis that the marginal Economist reader, idly browsing the current affairs section in WH Smith, was likely to be turned off by the unfamiliar ring of "Myanmar." Nevertheless, the magazine stuck rigidly to its style guide inside, where there was nary a "Burma" to be seen.
