Tag: journalism

Quote the whole dang thing!

Oh how I wish more people would have spent some time in a journalism class!

I’m so tired of people quoting only half of a statement because that’s all they chose to hear.

I’ve got the day off today (nice) and I woke up and read another section of “Jesus for President.” Bought it last night before going to the Dallas Museum of Art with Laurie.

I was good and ready to write a quick blog post about the what I had read before when my friend John forwards this to me from a site he forwards stuff from pretty constantly:

EXCERPT:

There is a word that describes John Dominic Crossan and that word is Heretic.

On a related note: Brian McLaren of the Emergent Church in his latest book Everything Must Change quotes favorably from Crossan’s latest book. McLaren and Crossan reinterpret the message of the gospel in such a way as to practically eliminate the doctrine of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement (This is the Biblical teaching that tells us the Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and died as our substitute on the cross in order to propitiate God’s wrath against our sins). After quoting Crossan on pages 122 and 123, Brian McLaren concludes that rather than die for our sins, “Jesus will use his cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.”

That is not the Biblical gospel!

That is a bunch of Emergent goblidy gook!

But here again the scriptures tell us plainly what the gospel is and so we ask who are you going to believe?
Mark 10:45 [Jesus said] “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Arrghh! I’ve read the book. I knew exactly when I read the email which portion of the book it came from. I had to jump up immediately. Head out to my truck and grab the book.

My response

again… taking one line out of an entire chapter.

McLaren NEVER says, “rather than die for our sins…” McLaren is making the point about Jesus’ framing story compared to that of Ceaser Augustus.

Now I’ve got to type this whole thing out to prove my point……. geeze….

The empires “good news” is a framing story of peace through domination, peace through redemptive violence, peace through centralized power and control, peace through elimination of enemies. (Sounds a lot like modern America doesn’t it*) It involves the gods legitimizing those in power so that resistance to their sacred regime becomes not only treason but also heresy. The imperial narrative that drives them to dominance often drives them to self-destruction. Jesus’ alternative framing story, as we’ve seen involves God bringing down those in power (Luke 1:52-53) so that the poor can be legitimized (Luke 4:18) and so that the religious collaboration with the empire can be exposed as hypocrisy. The empire uses crosses to punish rebels and instill fear and submission to the oppressed: Jesus will use a cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.

*my note

I have to wonder – would we really have that much to talk about, blog about, write about, get angry about if we’d only quote the whole dang thing. Maybe if, rather than listening for a sound bite to put on YouTube we’d actually take a couple hours (or maybe minutes) and read the entire chapter or book, or listen to the entire message.

Example 2

I have to share this from Kevin Hendricks re: the recent hub-bub about Jeremiah Wright:

Wow. The craziness is flying over comments made by Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. I’ve read reactions from people stronly opposed to Wright, and from people defending Wright (or at least giving some helpful context — Knightopia links to several more).

Some of what Wright says is clearly off the deep end (i.e., the government invented AIDS to wipe out people of color). But I think some of his comments are right on. Like the “God Damn America” comments:

“The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people — God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” (Seattle Times)

The ABC News story left out the last sentence, which I think helps give some context. Wright is preaching prophetically, like the prophets of old, who spoke out against injustice. I love America and the freedoms we have, but it’s not anti-American to speak out against injustice committed by America. That’s patriotic. (I wish Obama would have made that point.)

And America has some injustice going on when there are more black men in prison than in college.

Reporting death

The Iraq memorial from Basra

I’m never a huge fan of writing stories about death, but yet at the same time I’m intrigued by them.

I’ve written several in my short journalism career and it’s never been easy to do, but I don’t shy away from them either.

My first story was about two students murdered from my University. It was an odd story, because like most murders there wasn’t much information about it. And as a reporter for a college newspaper it was difficult to get local authorities to give me much information. But I was out to get every ounce I could and probably annoyed some people along the way.

The second story was about the first soldier from Belton killed in Iraq.

I also wrote a brief story about a soldier who named Belton as home, but lived in Kentucky with his family at the time of his death.

Today I discovered a former Harker Heights resident and Fort Hood soldier was killed in a plane crash Saturday.

I debated on telling the story. It ran on the AP wire, but neither of the local papers apparently noticed or cared to run it.

But I felt differently. Here is a man who served his country and likely died of a mechanical failure in his plane.

I was sure he had some sort of ties to Harker Heights and I’m sure people would appreciate knowing. So I write…

Former Heights resident killed in Georgia plane accident
Jonathan Blundell
Editor

Former Harker Heights resident and Fort Hood officer, Col. William Powell (Ret. US Army) was killed Saturday afternoon at approximately 3:39, when his single-engine, Beechcraft 35 Bonanza went down in a field outside Trinity, Ala.

Powell was killed on impact, while the passenger on-board was seriously injured and rushed to Huntsville Hospital by helicopter.

According to witnesses, the plan was coasting at a low altitude and no engine noise was heard shortly before the accident.

“You could tell something was wrong,” witness Danny Moore of Prattville, Al told The Decatur Daily News. “The plane rolled over and went nose down, tail up. It went straight to the ground.”

Powell’s wife, Patricia, who lived with Powell in Harker Heights between 1990 and 1992, while Powell was stationed at Fort Hood, said she wasn’t sure where William may have been headed, but assumed he was taking the plane for a test flight.

“Each year he takes the plane to Decatur for its annual inspection,” Patricia said. “When he went to pick it up earlier in the week, they had found something wrong with it and he waited till Saturday morning to pick up the plane. I believe something went wrong mechanically during the test flight and that caused the accident.”

Patricia did not know the passenger, but said she was sure he was a mechanic who may have worked on the plane.

Patricia also said she believed William found something wrong after take off and turned it around to head back to the airport.

According to initial reports by the Federal Aviation Administration, the plan crashed shortly after takeoff but no cause of the accident has been released.

Butch Wilson, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board told The Decatur Daily News that the plan was still in good condition after the crash.

“The cockpit and engine area are crushed. But there was no fire and it didn’t hit any trees coming in.”

Wilson was unaware of any flight plan and also noted that the plane’s fule tanks were empty.

Investigation into the crash by the FAA and NTSB could take six months before a final report is complete.

The accident was one of eight fatal airplane related accidents in the U.S. over the weekend, including one accident Sunday in Houston.

—

I’m waiting to hear more from the NTSB and FAA hopefully, but the little information I pulled off the web is likely all I’ll get.

I also hope I can find Powell’s obit to give more of the human side of the tragedy.

What do you think? Should newspapers report death and accidents? Should local papers who normally focus on happy chearful tea parties give the same coverage to death and accidents? What do you think makes news and who should decide?