Trusting amid adversity

FDR gives a fireside chat two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. From Original Negative / Alamy

Next year we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. What history marks as the beginning of the end, the D-Day invasion at Normandy, would come a year earlier, 1944, and 80th anniversary events of that fateful day drew huge crowds this summer before and after the Paris Olympics.

If it’s right that in war, the first casualty is truth, it may be because you find so much evidence in wartime journalism. During World War II, censorship of news reports ranged from extreme, in countries like Japan and Germany, to moderate, in places like Britain and France. Even in the United States, war news was carefully controlled, and the military and political leadership’s relationship with the press was usually hostile. President Roosevelt referred to press reports he did not like as “lies” (or worse), and he called representatives of the three major wire services “ghouls” and “vultures” (or worse).

Roosevelt had a then-novel medium for talking directly to the American people: his “fireside chats,” broadcast live via radio. Many of those conversations had huge audiences—tens of millions of American citizens—so the president had an outsize ability to get his messaging out.

Successful news outlets of the day prospered by advancing the administration’s narratives or by harshly refuting them. But, like today, there wasn’t a huge audience, or much adulation, in straightforward reporting and reasonable analysis.

That’s too bad. Sober truth-telling, supported by verifiable facts, is always better than excited advocacy that stretches, or limits, the truth. It is understandable in wartime that not all details of military strengths, weaknesses, or plans should be revealed. But holding back facts because they don’t fit a ­narrative ultimately is harmful and dishonest.

Today’s news organizations, reporters, and commentators face the same temptations as their counterparts 80 years ago. WORLD faces those temptations too. We pray—and we ask you to pray—that our staff and leadership never give in to the temptation to curry favor, promote stories as factual when the facts haven’t been confirmed, leave out facts that don’t “help our cause,” produce sensationalist content, or approach stories with prejudice. We pray—and we ask you to pray—that we trust the Holy Spirit to use the simple truth as He pleases.

ANOTHER MATTER for prayer: As a small organization, we are vulnerable to circumstances that knock individual staff members out of commission, temporarily or permanently.

We’ve faced this sort of issue before, of course. Over the years, individual employees—indispensable employees—have stepped away when the grind of travel and reporting and deadlines became too much. Health and family issues have forced others to reduce the time they spend working.

Even now, we’re battling through adversity: One of our executive editors has told us of his plan to retire at the end of the year to care for his wife, who is suffering from progressive dementia, and he’s not the only employee facing that situation with a spouse. Another editor has been diagnosed with a debilitating neurological condition. A senior business manager is dealing with an adult child, also a WORLD employee, who has serious cancer. Another is experiencing heart problems that will almost certainly limit her ability to work. That’s a lot, and it’s not a complete list.

On its own, each of these is difficult for WORLD and even more difficult for the individuals and families involved. At the same time, each is an example of life under the sun, and each is within God’s control.

So we pray for God’s protection, such as when Arla Eicher, an editorial staffer here and the wife of Nick Eicher, was nearly killed by a suspected drunk driver. As you’ll read later in this issue, her surviving this horrific car crash is a reminder that we should thank God for every moment. But we also pray for God’s comfort and strength when He allows difficult trials and losses, and for God’s calling on many others who will replace our irreplaceable people when the time comes.