When Chicago policemen were seen on television “messaging” various members of the press with nightsticks during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, cheers went up all over North America. Subsequent polls revealed that an astonishing credibility gap had opened between the journalistic fraternity and the readers. The pollsters learned that Chicago was looked upon by the “silent majority” as an occasion when the media people were “taking it” instead of “dishing it out,” and that many felt they had it coming.
I do not wish to enter the argument. Since I believe in original sin, I consider newspaper people to be positionally guilty like all the rest of us. Have we not all come short of the glory of God? But the hostility toward the press that was evident at Chicago has raised a more specific question: Is there something vocationally wrong with the way present-day journalists are carrying out their job? Speaking as one who has been in the game since 1928, when I joined the Daily Californian staff at Berkeley, I think there may be.
Many of the trends of present-day newspaper writing are exciting. I like the color, the improved layout, the variety, the use of polls, the openness, the humor, the brilliant interpretative reporting. Also, Jesus Christ is getting a much better press from today’s journalists than he did from me when I was an agnostic young city editor in the thirties. There are improvements and embellishments; but there are also dangers in the new journalism. What I fear most of all is the rapid spread of “tongue in cheek” reporting. This departure from traditional journalism has a smart, contemporary sound as it reflects the bitterness of the left-wing political stance. It is more and more in evidence in our metropolitan newspapers and syndicated columns, as well as on all the major networks.
Despite the iconoclastic tradition of Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Ring Lardner, and Westbrook Pegler, I do not feel that such journalism is native to the American scene. Perhaps some doctoral candidate should investigate whether the sour note did not enter U. S. journalism from Britain by way of Canada. A cynical tone has characterized many of the larger English newspapers for years. Today the Canadian and American press have been penetrated to a greater or lesser degree by the jaded disillusionment of the tired liberal. Various wars and assassinations in recent years have hastened the spread of the malaise. I sympathize with it, but I don’t like it, and I know of no way to counter it in the secular press.
My greater concern is for the Christian press. I find that this unhealthy spirit is creeping into Christian journalistic writing and is spreading. Perhaps it is a sign of the times, and we cannot expect our baptized reporters to write in a vacuum. Yet I feel that as Christian journalists we have a responsibility to the Lord Jesus Christ, and while it may not make us into angels, it ought to keep us from cranking out acerbic and disagreeable prose. Rancor is not one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
To illustrate: if we can’t write a constructive report of a church activity, perhaps we shouldn’t write about it at all. Many things are wrong with the church, but I am not sure we ought to be continually harping on them. Imagine the Psalmist spending all his time complaining that the Temple had no central heating, and the incense polluted the atmosphere, and the marble slabs were hard on his knees. How could he ever have turned out the 100th Psalm—or the 150th? Suppose Luke had filled his codex with reports of the things Paul “failed to touch on” in his sermons in Asia Minor. I doubt if we would be reading the Book of Acts for devotions today.
Let us journalists not become so zealous in our commitment to what we like to call our “honesty” and “impartiality” that we turn into the devil’s secret weapon. I am for truth in journalism even when it hurts. I believe in straightforward reporting that glorifies God and honors the Lord Jesus Christ. But Christian news need not involve playing up the foibles of church people, or drawing caricatures with obvious relish, or indulging in rumor-mongering, or dredging up old church failures that are now irrelevant. God will one day bring to light everything that is hidden, but we are not God. Although exposing sin is necessary and right, we should always remember that when dealing with individuals we should do it as Christ did it, with gentleness and compassion, and with their best interests in mind.
In his Confessions Augustine writes of hearing a voice that said to him, “I am the food of real men. Grow up and feed on me.” It isn’t enough for the Christian communicator to say, “I tell it the way it is.” We must remember that our pens are dipped in the blood of Christ. We need his wisdom as well as our own knowledge and information. Furthermore, the Christian reporter is, by virtue of his commitment, a Christian evangelist. The Lord can take even our dangling clauses and our parentheses and use them to bring men to himself.
Sherwood E. Wirt, editor of “Decision” magazine, holds the B.A. (University of California), B.D. (Pacific School of Religion), and Ph.D. (Edinburgh University).
