From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Two weeks ago, the world watched as peaceful protesters in Libya

came out in defiance of a regime notorious for its brutal suppression of any voices of dissent.

It was anything but safe for anti-Qaddafi protesters who had called for a Friday of liberation.

Gaddafi's forces fired on protesters in Tripoli as they emerged from mosques holding Friday...

Every town in eastern Libya was filled with protesters today.

People hoping that momentum is on their side and that Gaddafi will be gone in days, if not hours.

But something changed. Suddenly the media dropped the phrase protester and started talking about rebels instead.

In Benghazi, international news cameras were brought to see rebel fighters training civilian volunteers.

Attacks continued to escalate between government forces and rebels on several fronts.

...side and the west side of Tripoli that were in rebel control. The rebels held on, but the rebels

didn't gain any ground either. The shift in rhetoric may have been settled to some, but for others

it was a jarring change. Rebels, said many in the Twitter sphere,

was a pejorative. It was a word that separated the outside world from the struggle for

democracy. Foreign policy managing editor Blake Hounschild doesn't see why people should find the

word problematic. I don't find it a negative term at all. There is a certain romanticism, actually,

that I think a lot of us have about rebels. A lot of people still like to root for the underdog, and certainly the overwhelming majority of Americans are cheering on the anti-Qaddafi folks in Libya. There's not a lot of love for the Qaddafi side. In my own thinking, just as I was writing sentences myself, I had to think about at different points in the narrative, when do you call someone a protest or when do you call someone a rebel, when do you call someone anti-Gaddafi forces or pro-Gaddafi forces. As a journalist, I think it's a lot more precise and accurate term to use. You can't really call someone with an RPG a protester anymore.

At that point, really, they've become a rebel. So was it at that point at which the world's

media decided pretty much together to switch from protester to rebel?

These things often happen almost before you fully realize it and then you realize it.

You begin thinking that word doesn't sound right.

New York Times foreign editor Susan Shira talks about making the switch.

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