As we approached New Year’s Day, and this new era in GetReligion.org work, religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling started floating some trial balloons in our team’s behind-the-scenes email chatter.
For example, he suggested that we needed to run short, punchy commentary items every now and then when there was an interesting religion-beat story breaking or there was a potential story lurking somewhere in the digital weeds.
Long ago, GetReligion even had a “Got News?” logo for that kind of thing, atop posts that pointed to interesting, potentially newsworthy items in denominational wire services or other alternative sources of religion-beat information.
So what would this look like? Maybe something like this. Have you seen any mainstream news coverage of the leader of Chick-fil-A writing a letter admitting that his company messed up the whole ties-that-bind situation with Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
This story is all over the place in conservative Christian media, but, so far, I’m not seeing anything in the mainstream press. Here is the headline at DISRN: “Chick-fil-A CEO laments “inadvertently discrediting outstanding organizations" in giving strategy switch.”
So is this a story or not? It’s obvious that the original funding shift was a story, because it caused a firestorm in elite media (must-read Bobby Ross post here). Now there is this, care of DISRN:
In an open letter to the American Family Association (AFA), Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy expressed that the company "inadvertently discredited several outstanding organizations" when the fast food giant announced it would be restructuring its philanthropic strategy by halting donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes last year.
AFA President Tim Wildmon had written Cathy asking if Chick-fil-A would publicly state that both ministries are not hate groups because of their beliefs concerning sexuality, marriage, and family.
Cathy responded:
"As you have seen, recently we announced changes to our giving strategy at the Chick-fil-A Foundation. These changes were made to better focus on hunger, homelessness and education. We understand how some thought we were abandoning our long-standing support of faith-based organizations. We inadvertently discredited several outstanding organizations that have effectively served communities for years."
That’s a restatement of the policy change, attached to an apology.
So what is the big question here?
Well, that would be: Will this semi-apology from Cathy affect donations by the foundation that represents the leaders of Chick-fil-A (as opposed to financial of food gifts offered by the corporation itself)? And what about the news that the leaders of God’s chicken-sandwich chain had made a donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center?
DISRN noted that:
Cathy also reiterated that the family was committed to upholding the company's Corporate Purpose, which is "to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us" and "to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A."
"Some also questioned if our commitment to our Corporate Purpose was waning," Cathy wrote. "Let me state unequivocally: It is not."
Once again: Is this a news story or simply a nice touch of public relations?