The messenger, the message
In biblically directed journalism, the one is as every bit as important as the other
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I hope you won't be unduly scandalized if I tell you how I typically go about reporting a news story. Readers are best served, I have found, if I decide very early in the process what I think the story should say. Then I deliberately look for details to back up my preconception. I know such an admission offends the sensibilities of a great many folks. But since the idea is basic to our approach here at WORLD, you deserve something of an explanation.
Actually, along with the process I just described--and I didn't describe it just for effect--a couple of other factors are also important. The first is that I, like every other reporter, bring a certain background to my task. That background includes the whole heritage of my family's achievements and foibles, my education both formal and informal, and my preparation in the field that a specific reporting assignment brings me. Such a background also has to do with whether I am gullible or a skeptic, whether I am a builder or a detractor, and even whether I generally like or dislike people I meet.
If, for example, you wanted a report on a game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the story most certainly would not be improved if the writer came to the task with an utterly blank slate about America's great pastime. A reporter who has never seen a baseball game in his life might technically be a bit more neutral, but you'd be far better served by a real baseball fan's rich store of knowledge. (WORLD's editor Marvin Olasky, who grew up in the shadow of Boston's Fenway Park, would be a good place to start).
You, the reader, are increasingly well served by every bit of knowledge--even prejudicial knowledge--any writer can provide. The point is not how empty, but rather how full, the reporter's well of knowledge is. You want that person to be so smart and so insightful that you can rely on him or her to have quick and sound instincts about what is really going on.
That brings up the second qualifier. Having formed an opinion about what the gist of the story ought to be, and then having moved aggressively to find facts and details to back up that opinion, I'd better also be ready to face honestly any facts and details that prove me wrong in my original presuppositions.
One mark of growing maturity is that my intuitions and hunches tend to get more and more accurate. But another mark is that when they're not accurate, my equilibrium doesn't fall apart. A seasoned journalist--one you can consistently trust to get the story right--is someone ready to be surprised but not regularly surprised by the big direction of things.
All this is consistent with good Christian epistemology--the theory of the nature of knowledge. Biblical Christians are not people who stand around skeptically questioning everything around them, just beginning to piece together reality. Biblical Christians instead are those who already have assembled a large number of the puzzle's pieces. Not everything is in view, but enough is that we don't have to wander around in hopeless ignorance.
I was struck during the Atlanta Olympics, for example, that for all the emphasis on political correctness, multicultural equality, and New Age values, one self-evident truth was constant: The games still featured separate men's and women's events, with no strange gender mixes thrown in. No one argued that it would be a bit more equal to have men and women run the 100 meters in the same race, or that there should also be a third race for lesbian sprinters. Why? Because in spite of people's deliberate confusion and rebellion, God's truth is sometimes overwhelmingly obvious.
In the same way, biblically directed journalists are people who know that a big part of every story is already written. Some things are good and others are bad. Some actions are right and others are wrong. Some things are indescribably beautiful and others are unspeakably ugly. Some human behavior is obedient to God's order of things and other behavior is rebellious.
Too many secular journalists either don't know those truths or they simply refuse to face up to them. That's why they have sometimes made a false god of objectivity. In the process, they make their jobs incredibly harder. They regard as still uncertain information that they should long ago have discovered to be obvious and true.
Biblical journalists, meanwhile, are armed from the beginning with huge chunks of truth--truth that gives them a big jump in the chase for any story.
We should be modest and careful, of course, when there still are things we really don't know--and at WORLD we give you our word that such care will always be taken. We will never hide good evidence or significant facts that counter what we believe is the main direction of a story. But to feign ignorance when we've already discovered truth is today a far more treacherous ditch. It's one we're determined not to fall into anytime soon.
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