The story has changed. It’s time to change how the story is covered.
Last night, the fringe Gainesville pastor appeared to be persuaded by a personal phone call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to call off his Quran burning. Now, he appears to be back on. He says he will call off his burning only if the “Ground Zero mosque” (that’s a misnomer; it’s a Muslim community center in lower Manhattan) is moved.
If this pastor was really the Christian he claims to be, he would know that Jesus (render to Caesar) and Paul (everyone must submit to governing authorities) speak clearly. He is disobeying a direct request of the president of the United States delivered through Gates and he doesn’t have a local burning permit. He is disobeying biblical commands to obey earthly authority.
Rather, his determination to orchestrate events in New York shows his true colors. He’s not listening to God. He doesn’t just want a publicity stunt. He’s drunk with power.
Poynter Institute Kelly McBride has composed a nice essay offering advice to journalists. Her first suggestion is the most important: Don’t go. Giving this guy a battery of microphones only makes things worse.
Let’s back away. Send the satellite trucks home. Reduce journalists parked outside this small church to a couple of pool reporters. Exert the minimum effort necessary to cover the story. Pledge to put away the cameras if he lights a match.
The Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics urges journalists to report the truth while minimizing harm. We’ve done the former. But now we’re contributing to the latter.
Unmasked for the power-mad figure he perhaps always was, the Gainesville minister at the center of this storm has changed the story. It’s time to change how journalists cover him.
September 10, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Keep the trucks. Move the coverage.
Are the inclsiveevents planned this weeeknd as a counterstrike to Koran burning reactionary or responsive?
How many were to be canceled as soon as the hoofbeats of hatefulness retreat? Did they have no faith in good men doing something, in the fulsomeness of wholesomeness?
Now, all those inclusive “counter” events?…the budgets have been allotted, the trucks and crews scheduled for deployment to the area, program feeds, time, lead-ins, teases, on-air and production units and assets – on the board…
Why bring them off? It’s still a theme, in a town that wants to lift its (and its nation’s and culture’s) best into this sordidly smeared window of opportunity.
The story, and the learning and the teaching moment is to pay a closely honed and critical eye to the amount and tone and type of replacement coverage after all the prurient lathering up for a book burning (lynching, cross-burning, stoning…choose your favorite culture/era)
Myself, I’ll be particularly attentive to see who seeks out some last minute reactionary miniscule boil to burst onscreen.
I expect that we will not be cleansed of our sliming but helped to sloppy seconds of some other supporating outrage to be dowsed in the gore of. With a more tastefully understated garnish.
But the point is, with all this envigorated community counter-programming on deck…heck, with an Earth Day-like opportunity to turn notion, promotionally, toward movement (let alone the Feast of Id, end of Ramadan joyous connotations of inclusion, outreach, understanding, generosity and mercy), the Media Moment, bought and paid for and self-propagating exists and must be purposefully cast aside, vigorously. That’s your story, your coverage and your journalistic duty. It’ll die here.
September 10, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Norm,
I posted this to my class blog for Reporting & Writing Online Media. We had a good discussion about the topic in class Thursday, and I think your analysis echoes a lot of their sentiments. Thanks for putting this out there!
Jen
September 10, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Nice one, professor! It would be interesting to see what would happen if we DID do that.
Maybe we’d finally know whether everyone is talking about it because it’s in the news, or if it’s in the news because everyone is talking about it.
September 11, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I really think that journalists blew this story up and basically gave Jones his 15 minutes of power. He’s famous now, for being a bigot, yes, but famous nonetheless. If the media didn’t give him coverage in the first place then none of this would have happened. It played right into his hands. Here’s a great Huffington Post article about how the media embarrassed themselves.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/this-is-how-the-media-wor_n_712229.html
September 13, 2010 at 11:21 am
I think that media embarassment is like political irony…extinct.
Media and politics are contagions rising to replace civics and journalism. What made those efforts viable on a wide scale is siphoned, corrupted and contained and reduced to only tattering decline and local colonies of health. Your internet is next.