In its response to the 2011 ANPRM, PRIM&R denied that an exclusion for “certain fields of study” was “even worth considering.”
Now, in comments on the NPRM, PRIM&R Executive Director Elisa Hurley writes, “some of the exclusions proposed in the NPRM will likely be widely welcomed, such as the explicit exclusion of journalism, oral history, biography, and historical scholarship activities.”
As Ellen Bresler Rockmore reminds us, passive constructions (“will … be widely welcomed”) can disguise meaning, and that is the case here; is Hurley among those who will welcome the change?
I hope so. But in any case, PRIM&R seems to be finally acknowledging the grievances of historians and journalists and the need for reform.