I have never really enjoyed listening to infomercials, to tell you the truth. But, like it or not, creating one of those was a small part of the agenda in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).
Yes, host Todd Wilken and I talked about GetReligion’s upcoming move to the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi, where I will also be a senior fellow linked to events focusing on religion, news and politics. I announced that in a post the other day with this headline: “Religion news, the First Amendment and BBQ: GetReligion will soon have a new home base.” And, yes, we talked about the fact that GetReligion needs to raise some money in order to do what we do in the future.
However, I think it’s significant how we got to that topic. We started off talking about the doctrinal wars over LGBTQ rights at George Fox University, which was addressed in this post: “Here we go again (again): RNS/AP offers doctrine-free take on George Fox LGBTQ battles.”
Readers can tell, just from that headline, that this story linked into many familiar GetReligion themes, including the crucial role that doctrine — whether academics call it “doctrine” or not — plays in defining life on private-school campuses, both on the left and the right. All to often (think “Kellerism”), journalists report and edit these stories as if journalists are in charge of determining what is “good” doctrine and what is “bad” doctrine.
There’s no need for an accurate, fair-minded debate when you already know who is right and who is wrong. Here’s a bit of that George Fox post:
Once again, we have LGBTQ activists who want to modernize the ancient doctrines that define their Christian college. …
Once again, the activist students are given lots of space to describe their convictions and complaints — as they should be be. Once again, however, the only material offered defending the school’s doctrinal stance comes from online documents and email from a campus spokesperson. Once again, it appears that there are no flesh-and-blood human beings who can provide quotes and personal stories in support of a traditional Christian school.
Why keep defending these same journalistic values over and over, insisting that journalists strive to cover these kinds of hot-button religious debates in with accuracy and balance, showing respect for believers on both sides? Why carry on, insisting that traditional journalism values apply to stories about religion, morality and culture, as well as business, sports, science and politics?
Well, that’s what the veteran religion-writers here at GetReligion want to do.
After recording the podcast, I was reminded of a classic statement of this old-school “liberal” values in journalism. It’s found in a 2003 memo (we’ve discussed it at GetReligion before) written by the late John S. Carroll, during his time as editor of The Los Angeles Times.
The memo was written because Carroll was concerned about a very slanted, one-sided Times story about a topic linked to abortion and science. “Seldom will you read a cheaper shot than this,” he said, dissecting one section of the news report.
The end of the memo is a classic defense of basic journalism:
The reason I'm sending this note ... is that I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage. We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.
I'm no expert on abortion, but I know enough to believe that it presents a profound philosophical, religious and scientific question, and I respect people on both sides of the debate. A newspaper that is intelligent and fair-minded will do the same.
Respect. Intelligence. A fair-minded approach to the news. Amen.