Journalistic Sensationalism

Of late, every year at Christmastime, we hear stories of this town or that public library or the other school choosing not to hold an event or put up a sign relating to Christmas.  The media often picks it up and the churn begins as the story gets around as an assault on our country's foundations in Judeo-Christian tradition.  While this is very distressing to the large number of Christians in the country and for good reason, it's important to keep in mind that the media benefits more when the story creates more outrage.  An example presented itself today, but because it happened at Lake Washington High School, just across the lake from where I live, I got an opportunity to contrast the media version and the hype with the real story.

 

In short, the Attic Group, a non-profit theater troupe, is putting on an interpretation of A Christmas Carol at the high school.  The principal, Mark Robertson, instructed the matinee performance to be cancelled.  The originating news story reported that he cited the fact that the Attic Group planned to charge the students for a performance during school hours as the issue but that even if that wasn't a problem, there would still be a discussion of the intersection of school and religion.  This story was even picked up by Paul Harvey, making it national news that villified Robertson.

 

However, this morning Robertson came on KVI, a local conservative talk radio station.  Interestingly enough, he wouldn't come on the radio show until his pastor was on the line, too.  He clarified his position, repeating the point about charging students, the point about it taking place during school hours, and adding that the original matinee was never approved by the principal's office but rather by an unauthorized subordinate, which itself would have been enough to warrant cancellation.  The show's host, John Carlson (a one-time Republican gubernatorial candidate) asked him about the religious element.

 

As it turns out, the journalist had asked Robertson several times about whether there was a religious aspect to the decision and was told there was not.  The quote that ended up in the new story was actually in response to a hypothetical situation designed to elicit the quoted response.  Robertson had brought along his pastor to attest to his character.  It was very funny to hear his pastor say something to the effect of, "I'm on the line because Robertson's part of my parish and a good friend.  I attest to his character and he knows that if he lies he has to answer to me!"  (The pastor and the principal are both black and it's an Antioch Bible church.  Imagine that statement spoken in a black dialect by a preacher, and it gets even funnier.)

 

In the end, this simple instance of a cancelled performance because of a failure on the part of the performers to meet some basic beauracratic steps and policies was turned into a sensational, national story by a journalist that chose sensationalism over objective reporting with integrity.  Undoubtedly, this happens all the time and we only hear about it if we happen to be listening to the right local show, if it even gets revealed at all.  This proves the value of the adage, "Don't believe everything you read."  Or see or hear, for that matter.