Are We Going to Keep Calling It White Paper?
I’ll get this out of the way. Are we going to keep calling it white paper? Probably. Be at ease, dear reader, I aim not to strip the word “white” from all its usages. Printed paper is, generally speaking, white.
But I present the question to you as it appeared in my mind while working through a freelance copywriter application: “What experience do you have writing white paper?” I’ve heard the term before. It came up in a business communications workshop I took earlier this year. And being the lover of words that I am, I looked it up. The pitstop, wiki-definition is “an authoritative report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter.”
While working as a business development manager, I was asked to craft a letter to a few high-profile clients who had opted into a new-to-market piece of equipment. The technology for the machine was impressive and had required a financial investment by the client. In the land of bulky countertop bean-to-cup machines that have seen very little significant updating since the 1970s, a machine whose entire apparatus sits under the counter with a single, flawless, stainless steel countertop spout, activated by an app on your phone, sets itself apart. It is aesthetically the difference between a crusty brown glass pot and food replicator. So the high profile clients had seen it as an opportunity to simplify their conference and break room spaces in a visually utilitarian way.
Our company prided itself on embracing new technology in the office coffee industry and had openly backed the R&D approach to using the new machine including sending a team of service technicians to Europe to train with the manufacturer. Unfortunately, after months of significant service issues that left our clients without coffee for days at a time, we had to pull the machines from our market. I was tasked to write that letter. In it, I expressed our philosophy about embracing forward thinking developers, explained the limitations in service support, and informed the clients of our decision to remove their equipment.
I had written a white paper even if we didn’t call it that.
Part of my training as an editor has been to think critically about word choice. And when I see verbiage that appears to be biased, it serves me well to do a bit of digging. How did the term “white paper” trigger my internal red flag? The answer is two fold: First, that in the midst of on-going discussions about race relations, any terminology that uses race-like terms, whether intentionally or not, should at least encourage me to take a look into the history of its usage. Two, that if a skill-set is going to be a determining factor for a job application, I question any verbiage that appears industry specific; which is to say, is the term only used in that industry while the skill is used in other industries under different terminology. If a job application asks me if I know how to script Python, I know the answer is no. But writing a white paper? I couldn’t say for certain.
White paper follows two different usages but they both boil down to one thing: authoritative voice within a governing body. In government, these reports are a definitive statement for policy, in business they are authentication for marketing strategy. The term appears to be coined by the British government. A response to Palestinian and Israeli relations in 1922 by Churchill was coined a white paper because shorter, and printed on white paper as opposed to a longer format “blue book.” And thus a term is born.
But perhaps it is fair to ask the questions: Who has the authority? What criteria are in place to give that person(s) the authority? In the 1970s, another historical white paper was issued in Canada. It was intended to be a proposal by the Canadian government to correct and improve the lives of First Nation peoples. In response to this, a document titled Red Paper and written by the Indian Chiefs of Alberta [sic] was presented. The Red Paper rejects the white paper’s assertions on a number of grounds including failing to uphold agreements to First Nation peoples and attempting to assimilate aboriginals rather than “…preserve our culture…necessary to preserve our status, rights, lands and traditions.” The Red Paper points out:
“Yet, what Indians asked for land ownership that would result in Provincial taxation of our reserves? What Indians asked that the Canadian Constitution be changed to remove any reference to Indians or Indian lands? What Indians asked that Treaties be brought to an end? What group of Indians asked that aboriginal rights not be recognized? What group of Indians asked for a Commissioner whose purview would exclude half of the Indian population in Canada? The answer is no Treaty Indians asked for any of these things and yet through his concept of “consultation,” the Minister said that his White Paper was in response to things said by Indians.”
A ruling body issues an authoritative report but the authenticity and motive of the report is highly suspect. I recently read Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, along with the thousands of well-meaning new-to-antiracism white people. In it she provides a list of industries and the percentage of white people that are in top level positions in the United States between 2016-2017. The percentages are staggering. “Congress, 90% white. Top Military Advisors, 100% white. US Governors, 96% white.” When it comes to government issued reports, taking into account the whiteness of these positions, the word white paper begins to feel a bit ironic. It may be that the more productive examination is not what color we are associating to authority, but the voices we are amplifying in that authority.
Back to business.
How did a term coined by a British Prime Minister make its way into the hands of marketing strategists? Well, in the world of business, the meaning of the term white paper is somewhat hard to pinpoint; and its history is almost impossible to determine. However, it is fair to say that it became relevant with the inception of Business to Business (B2B) marketing. Suppose your company develops point-of-sale software; you would be selling that software to other businesses, and the way you sell that software differs from the way that a t-shirt manufacturer might market their new designs in a department store. Your company may generate white paper content to distribute to the current client base to introduce new ideas regarding future software updates.
While white paper is a marketing strategy, it is not a sales pitch. Format length varies depending on the audience and distribution--I’ve seen recommended length anywhere from 1 page to 10 pages, sometimes more. It is meant to promote your business but be weary of too overtly promoting your product as they will turn off potential clients. Ultimately, though, the intention of the piece is to provide an authoritative voice--as wiki suggests “thought leadership”--within a specific market. Yet this content does not appear to be printed onto anything remotely resembling white paper.
And thus the term feels a bit akin to that all familiar “cc” in our emails. At least etymologically speaking, these two little letters refer to the days when carbon paper was placed between two sheets of paper so that a duplicate of some communication could be produced in one go. The letters “cc” were included on the copy so that the recipient knew another person had been given the same letter. White paper, through this lens, feels at best out-of-date and would have definitely earned a “WC?” in the margin if I had been the editor at its inception.
Do words matter? I believe they do. And the words we choose to use reveal socialization, they expose intention, and they can mold interpretation. Is white paper just another systemic inception of a racially charged word into common lexicon? Probably not. If I were to hit print on this very article, a white page with black letters would slip from my printer into existence. We have bigger fish to fry when there is terminology far more destructive in use today. I was shocked to hear that hardware designers and component developers ever used “master” and “slave” to describe hardware and process flow--not to mention that they are still colloquially used today. We have larger battles to wage when many Americans decry the right to proudly display confederate flags and other monuments that, while representing a dark history that should be studied, should certainly not be honored in public spaces.
But should we be aware and should we be critical? Absolutely.
Consider this: It is a privilege to say “well that’s the way it’s always been and the way that it will always be.” Only persons who are unaffected or benefiting from the “always been” care little enough to interrupt the “always will be.” If I were sitting at the head of a team of diverse and brilliant marketing minds and I needed an authoritative document produced, I guarantee you that I would not ask for a “white paper.” Mostly because of how vague that term is, never mind that as a white woman I would see the association between “authoritative” and “white” despite the unintentional use of it.
There are so many colors used to define different subject matter in written content. Green paper refers to a document that provides courses of actions, blue papers are technological specifications, yellow paper is unverified research. Then there is grey paper, which seems to umbrella all of the above! Are we really even talking about what color paper a piece of content is being printed on anymore?
Besides, you can’t tell me that with nearly two hundred thousand words in use in the English lexicon, we can’t come up with updated terminology? Authenticated Issue. Definitive Publications (DefPubs!). Dependable Feature. Legit Editorial. Verified Scoop. Or that if we are in the habit of adopting terminology to fit our needs, we can’t look to other fields that use these types of documents? Take for example the “learned treatise.” An exception to the hearsay rule, a document called a “learned treatise” can be submitted to the court as evidence. Academics write methodologies and letters. With so many options available, are we really stuck with white paper? I’d rather write a treatise.
References:
Churchill White Paper (1922). https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/churchill-white-paper-1922
Hearsay Rule. https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=859
Historical Document 2: Red Paper, 1970. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/chotr/chapter/copy/
White Fragility. (2018) Robin DiAngelo.
White paper. Margaret Rouse. https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/white-paper
White Paper, Red Paper. https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/chapter-8/white-paper-red-paper
