JOLLYBLOGGER

An Interesting Take on the News Business

Here's an interesting story I found while goofing off on a Saturday, catching up on Gator News.  Although it's a story that works in my favor as a Gator Fan, it's an interesting illustration of how the news media works. 

For years now I've been pretty ambivalent about the news.  I can't remember the last time I watched a news program on TV and I only read the newspaper in the fall on Sundays to catch up on Saturday's football scores.  Check that, I sometimes read the newspapers in the fall, but usually I just go over the SI and ESPN sites and the GatorSports site and that's enough.  For news I'll check Drudge usually once a day and on a day when I am intensely interested in the news of the day I may lightly scan an article or two they link to.  And I have a few blogs that keep up with the news that I read from time to time so I'm not completely ignorant of the news.  In fact, just last week I heard there was an election last year, and did you know we have a new President?

Now for those of you who find my lack of interest in the news heretical never fear, I get all kinds of email forwards that keep me informed of the conspiracy or EOTWAWKI scenario dujour so it's not like I'm completely out of the loop. 

With all of that, any guilt I ever felt about not keeping on top of the news was relieved when I read c. John Sommerville's book "How the News Makes Us Dumb."  In it he makes what to me is a persuasive case that the problem with the news media is not bias or incompetence on the part of the news organizations or news personnel themselves, it is the nature of the media itself.  The problem with news is it's daily-ness.  Because the news business is daily, the #1 goal of news media is to make you come back tomorrow.  Therefore, they have to focus on the sensational, they are not able to discern the significant.  In other words the nature of the beast itself prevents the news media from being a good source of . . . well . . . the news. 

So, I'm reading today about my beloved Gators (which is always significant and newsworthy!) and I come across this article in the Orlando Slantinel about why newspapers in Florida are giving more coverage to the Florida Gators than the FSWHO Seminoles.  And while it seems self-evident to me that no one with a sound mind could have any interest in knowing what happens to the nolies I was intrigued to find out why newspapers in Florida are covering the Gators more than other schools in Florida.  

The bottom line - it's readership and advertising.  While it's true that the Gators have been more newsworthy in recent years than any other athletic team on the planet, it is interesting to me why the nolies and other teams aren't getting the coverage.  Here's the writer: 

I regret to inform you that the debate is over. Newspapers undeniably prefer the Gators, though not for the reasons persecuted fans think.

It's not an orange-and-blue thing, It's a green thing.

Money is becoming scarce in the newspaper business. 

And: 

That's not to toot our horn. If the boss is ever ordered to choose between covering FSU and Florida, he'd pick the Gators.

Florida gets more readers, more Web hits and more reaction, and generates more advertising. Seminoles fans don't want to hear it. It's not fair, but a lot of things aren't fair in this scenario. Like three FSU beat writers being laid off, one just last week.

Sports fans say if only newspapers would have covered their favorite teams better, circulation wouldn't have dropped. Just as conservatives say if newspapers weren't so liberal, they wouldn't be in this fix.

The biggest reason is the billions of advertising dollars disappearing into the Internet. Things like Craigslist aren't Republican, Democrat, Seminole or Gator. The newspaper business model broke, and FSU picked a bad time to founder.

While it's been Emerald Bowl material, Florida has won two football and two basketball national championships. Which program would you cover?

Again, while I don't want anyone to waste any of few precious moments we have on this earth reading about nolies, I do think this illustrates Sommerville's points - that the goal of news is not to report the news, it is to generate readership. Interestingly enough, Sommerville was a prof at the U of F.  But because of this one ought not to think they are getting news of significance from the news, and we ought to be aware that we are being fed what will bring more readers, not what is necessarily significant. 

Sommerville's alternative is that we ought to take the time we devote to reading newspapers and watching news programs to reading books.  We need to read history and philosophy, and I would add theology, and things like that which give us a larger view of the world and give us the tools which will enable us to rightly interpret the events of our day. 

So the next question is, why are you wasting your precious time reading my blog when you could be reading something significant like philosophy, history, or theology, or the latest on the Florida Gators.  

In this country, a black man still can't catch a break

Today's news from the Onion.  Thanks to my friend and fellow pastor Paul Warren for keeping me in the news loop on this.

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America.

And . . .

The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

Read the whole thing - "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job."

Election Eve Post #4 - The Scariest Words in the English Language

And now for my last election eve post before I get back to more important things like church, theology, squirrel eating bobcats and my daughter.  This from Ronald Reagan.

The scariest words in the English language are "Hello, I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Election Eve Post #3 - Mike Metzger on the Real Winner of the Election

I'm about to crack down on myself for using up valuable blog space blogging on something as trivial as elections and the like, but before I come back and shut myself down, here's another election eve thought for your consideration.   Here's Mike Metzger on how to tell who the real winner of the election is:

Be sure to vote this Tuesday. But wait until Sunday morning at church to catch the election results. Whichever candidate wins, look for the look on your friends’ faces. In too many cases, it will tell you the New Deal beat the New Covenant.

Speaking of the fragile fabric of morality and markets that our nation was founded upon, Metzger says:

The threads were further ripped in the Roaring Twenties. A lot of things soared, including the stock market, drug abuse, divorce rates, and crime syndicates in major cities (did you think I was describing 2008 or the 1920s?). When the market crashed in 1929, the problem was how to create or reinforce social consensus where little or none could be generated by institutions that formerly performed this role – i.e., the church. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the New Deal rushed into the space vacated by the New Covenant. This is why the New Deal is considered the most important development of the last century in American political culture. It wasn’t so much FDR and the Democrats – the New Deal made politics the end-all of nearly everything – for every party.

The New Deal shifted the solutions to problems over to politics. It said if we could get the right politicians in office and the right laws passed, all would be well. This was a new fabric of politicization where business interests, higher education, philanthropy, art, science, and minorities all sought legitimacy through the rights conferred by the state.

He goes on:

It’s sad to say, but Christians on the Right and Left have been sucked into the New Deal vortex. They’re seeking to legitimatize Christianity in the public square through political action. . . Politicized parishioners measure success by the number of politicians visiting their church or pastors offering prayers to open congressional sessions. The hope these Christians place in politics is quite astonishing.

And here's how you can tell who won the election:

Depending on which church you attend, you’ll see one of three faces – conquest, contempt, or confidence. In one church, they’ll crow about their conquest because their candidate won. In another church, they’ll grimace, grind their teeth, and begin plotting revenge because their candidate lost. But in both churches, the bigger winner is the New Deal because these are the faces of politicized people.

If you see confident expressions, regardless of which candidate wins, you’re looking at a New Covenant Christian.

Read the whole thing.

P. S. This is a little off topic but here's a post on how the new deal actually lengthened the depression by about 7 years. 

Election Eve Post #2 - You don't have to demonize Obama to not vote for him.

Here's post #2 on politics during this brief window of time where I am allowing myself to post on politics for a few hours, given that it's election eve and all.

This one comes from my good buddy Will Hinton.  I'm planning on voting for McCain, but I'm not voting for McCain because I have bought into the demonization of Obama that comes from so many conservative outlets.

Here's what Will says:

As a somewhat conservative Christian, I am particularly disgusted by the manner in which Christians have become hysterical in their desire to smear Obama in every way possible. I have said many times during this campaign, one does not have to make Obama out to be the anti-Christ to not vote for him. Same goes for McCain. So what are Christians saying to convince others to NOT vote for Obama?

After surveying some of the reasons Christians are saying not to vote for Obama, Will says:

The shame of all these ridiculous claims is that one can find very valid reasons to NOT vote for Obama. His doctrinaire position on abortion, his record that shows few instances of bucking the party line and working in a bipartisan manner, or his tendency to believe that the federal government can solve the current economic problems are reasons enough for me. Yet I don't recall these positions being part of orthodox Christian doctrine.

Right on Will!

Election Eve Post #1 - John MacArthur on the Election

Since it's election eve I'll lift my self-imposed ban on on political posting for a few hours here. 

First up, here's an excerpt from a post by Steve Walker at the Gate:

On July 12, 2008, in an interview with David Wheaton, Dr. John MacArthur, made some extraordinary statements regarding Christian involvement in the political process. David Wheaton asked: “Are you concerned about the next president of the United States, John MacArthur, as far as what direction he’s going to take the country?”

Dr. MacArthur replied:

“I’m not concerned about that for 5 seconds. It has nothing to do with the kingdom of God — absolutely nothing to do with it. The Lord will build his Church; I’m concerned about his Church. I’m concerned about the name of Christ, the gospel, the glory of God, the purity of the Church, the clarity of the teaching of the word of God. Jesus said it as clearly as it could be said when he said to Pilate, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight.’ His kingdom has nothing to do with this world. You could argue that the Roman power was oppressive, and even deadly, as indicated in Luke 13 when Pilate’s men went in and sliced up the Jews who were worshiping in the Temple. You can make the case that Jesus should have done something to obliterate slavery, or overturn Roman oppression, and free the people of Israel. It has nothing to do with that — ‘My kingdom has nothing to do with that. My kingdom is not of this world.’

Obviously, as a human being, I would like to see someone who is moral; I’d like to see someone who is a Christian have an opportunity to influence things from a viewpoint of Christianity. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with the advance of the kingdom of God. I am much more concerned about the kingdom that is not of this world than the kingdom that is America.”

I'll offer one little quibble while saying I'm wholeheartedly behind this quote.  I think he overstates the case when he says this has nothing to do with the kingdom of God.  I think if we believe in the sovereignty of God and if we follow Kuyper's maxim that there is not one square inch of all creation over which Christ does not claim "this is mine," then we have to say that everything (including politics) has something to do with the kingdom of God.

That quibble aside - he is right on.  We vastly overestimate the importance of politicians and political systems to God.  The church is where the action is, not the nation-state.

Whatever the Problem is, It's Not Me

Here's some wisdom from Wendell Berry via Patrick J. Deneen by way of Mere Comments.

The last thing we will consider is altering our own behavior—because, surely, someone else is at fault. The Oil Companies, the Saudis, Dick Cheney—anyone but me. As has been described by Jason Peters, editor of a fine volume on Berry, it’s like heavy traffic. Heavy traffic is always other people. When you say “traffic was terrible,” you’re never talking about yourself.

Wendell Berry asks us to understand how we are a cause of the terrible traffic we complain about. His basic argument is that we must become more thoughtful about what we are doing. We must seek to understand the ways in which we are ourselves complicit in bad work, and seek to avoid that complicity where possible and, better still, to do good work instead. He does not advise withdrawal from the world, but full and active engagement in it. He fully acknowledges that we are technological creatures: to survive and thrive we must use nature. But again, “we must know both how to use and how to care for what we use.”

I'm going to have to be careful here before I start throwing stones, since this is the story of my life.  But let me give a couple of examples of how I have seen this and even been party to it.

"We're having trouble in our marriage," not "I'm nagging him to death," or "I'm a lazy slob who expects her to wait on me hand and foot."

"We're having financial trouble," not "you know, maybe it wasn't such a good idea for me to buy that boat after all."

"Our church has problems," not "I and my fellow church members come to church with a consumeristic mindset every Sunday and expect to have it our way," or "my own leadership failures have led to lots of the problems we are now experiencing."

Other examples anyone?

The Recycling Myth

I've briefly mentioned my views on the environment here and how I have gone from indifferent to the environment to an understanding of our responsibility to be good stewards of the earth over which God created man to rule.

I briefly mentioned reading some of Dixie Lee Ray's book Trashing the Environment and I would say it was instrumental in making me perpetually suspicious of environmentalists.  Again, it's not that I'm against environmentalism, it's just that given their track record, the environment is too important to let the environmentalists govern how we respond to it.

Along with that I've always been suspicious of the whole process of recycling.  Somewhere along the line someone pointed out to me how difficult it is to process some recyclable materials and the use of harsh chemicals that contribute to pollution. Plus, given the breathless way that recycling has been advocated I just had my suspicions that this was another overblown thing like how we heard a few years ago that we were on the verge of a new ice age because of human irresponsibility.  In fact, man is so irresponsible and his actions have such dramatic effect on the environment that that imminent ice age became an imminent meltdown, which is apparently still eminent even though the oceans have been getting colder since 2003 and 2007 was the coldest winter in decades. 

Well, Anthony Bradley got me all wrapped around the axle on the matter of recycling with this post.  Anthony says:

I have no idea why people buy into the myth that recycling benefits the environment. There is NO proof that recycling makes a difference at all. None. If you're passionate about recycling you may have not be thinking through the number of pollutants produced in the recycling process. What are the energy inputs and by-product outputs of the recycling process. Hello!!!!

Recycling things like paper, aluminum cans, etc. are among the most harmful ways to pollute the environment and use fossil fuels. Good job, recycle man. And recycled paper is so toxic that I wouldn't put children within three feet of it.

And, to Christians he says:

What's even more odd is when religious people talk about "stewardship" of the environment and in the same paragraph imply that Christians should support recycling. What? Why would I encourage those who care about stewardship to further pollute the environment and introduce toxic, recycled products to children.

The Girl Effect

I found this fascinating.  Dan Heath at Made To Stick quotes a study as follows:

“When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.”

And references this video:

Don't know what to do with what I learned on that yet, but it is intriguing.  I am thinking of the whole micro-loan movement with Kiva and such, and this adds another layer to it - microloans seem to have a great positive influence on cultural change, and it seems that maybe there is a more targeted way to effectively engage in micro-loans - invest in a girl.

On a sidenote - I'll blog on this from Mike Metzger later - but I just want to mention that he makes the intriguing comment that social engagement often fosters evangelism - I am wondering if there is anything we can learn from the whole microloan movement and the girl effect that we can transfer back here to America in such a way that it fosters evangelistic success, rather than seeks to replace it?

A Must Hear - Will Hinton Interviews Andy Crouch

OK, Will Hinton is my good buddy, so I'm inclined to like whatever he does - but with as little bias as I can muster let me say that I think his interview with Andy Crouch on the subject of "Culture Making" is outstanding.  It was one of the most well-spent 30 minutes of my week or month.  It makes me extra eager to read Andy's new book.

Andy and Will cover culture, how it changes and how we can be involved.  He cites a few "culture makers" as examples - Chick-Fil-A, In-N-Out Burger, Kiva and the Prison Entrepreneurship Program.  Chick-Fil-A is known for their counter-culture practice of not being open on Sundays and I gotta say that, though I can't stand their food, I admire their business plan and operation, so for those of you who like that kind of food, please support them.  Ok, I do like their waffle fries, but I'm on the low carb thing so that pretty welll ixnays that.  Andy says that when he is in an In-N-Out Burger the workers there are some of the happiest people he sees. I will also say that they make a superior burger, if I am ever in California, In-N-Out is a must stop for me.  In fact, my biggest complaint about them is that they aren't on the east coast.

Anyway, as I said, the podcast is outstanding - listen and pick up Andy's book when it comes out.