Let Dallas be Dallas?

December 26, 2007 By

Dallas Skyline dayThat post from the other day about the Dallas Morning News Solstice coverage continues to draw interesting comments.

As I said in the comments pages, it’s clear that the solstice celebration was a valid news story. But it’s also clear that many Christmas-related events that were much, much, much larger were deemed to be old hat and not worthy of fresh coverage.

That may or may not be true. We don’t know if there were valid news hooks linked to any of those other mainstream events in Dallas. If the tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?

Anyway, here is the archetypal comment from one of our faithful readers on the journalistic left, which means, in this case, that the purpose of news is to educate the mainstream readers who need to have their world views broadened until they resemble those of journalists:

Michael says:

The goal of a local newspaper is to cover events that are newsworthy and interesting. The goal is to get readers to consider things they’ve never considered before, open a door to something they don’t know much about, to tell the untold stories. It is not to always just hold up a mirror for the reader so that they can gaze at themselves, although clearly there is a role for that.

The question is how you achieve that balance. On the Solstice, writing about the Solstice is a reasonable news decision. Just as on Christmas, there will be the inevitable story from Midnight Mass because that is a reasonable news decision.

But if I had to choose between a story about a Solstice celebration in the buckle of the Bible belt or a story about Bible Belt Megachurch doing their 17th annual Living Nativity, it’s a reasonable news decision to cover the news because it is going to be “new” and “news” to many readers. There’s a reason we don’t call it “olds.”

Winter solstice LW2 01Meanwhile, I received a private email from a Dallas reader who wanted to comment on the reality that is facing readers and former readers of the most powerful newspaper in Texas. It appears that this reader still reads the dead-tree-pulp edition.

As a Dallas Morning News reader who is grateful for the extra coverage the newspaper has given to religion over the years (and who mourns the loss of the Religion section), I appreciate your attention to our hometown paper’s continuing reporting on religion here. I don’t know if you get to see the print edition of the News, but this past weekend’s Religion page was a good example of what I consider to be the paper’s blind spot about its own audience.

There were two stories on the page. One was a story from wire services about Christians who don’t celebrate Christmas. The other was about Latino Christians and a Christmas procession. Both were interesting, but I couldn’t help wondering if this was the best the newspaper in this overwhelmingly Christian community can do on the weekend before Christmas. If you look on the page opposite the Religion page, it’s a full page of ads for Dallas area churches listing the times of their Christmas services. All of them are in English.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I couldn’t help thinking that the News is selling ads to English-speaking people (mostly Protestant) who observe Christmas, but their news pages have nothing really for those people. I mean no disrespect to my Latino brothers and sisters in Christ, but how many of them are buying the Dallas Morning News? Maybe I’m too sensitive about this, but I get the feeling that my local newspaper is bored by ordinary northern European Christians who live in the suburbs, even though as far as I can tell from reading business trends stories, it’s people like us who are the few remaining subscribers to newspapers.

If you think I’m overreacting, please tell me. I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way, because my Christian friends, a lot of whom have stopped subscribing to the News because they (we) think the paper is either hostile to people like us, or doesn’t care, talk about it. I’m also curious to know if the readers of your blog who live elsewhere in the country notice something similar about their own local newspaper’s religion coverage. Please don’t misunderstand: I don’t want a newspaper that only pays attention to people like me! I’m just lots of times left scratching my head about the news judgment of editors. Is this just a Dallas thing, or do you see this trend nationwide? Or am I completely out to lunch.

Yours sincerely,
A North Texas Reader

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Filed Under: Announcements, Godbeat, Journalism, Religion
About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

  • Another NT Reader

    But if I had to choose between a story about a Solstice celebration in the buckle of the Bible belt or a story about Bible Belt Megachurch doing their 17th annual Living Nativity, it’s a reasonable news decision to cover the news because it is going to be “new” and “news” to many readers. There’s a reason we don’t call it “olds.”

    news: 1. a report of a recent event; information. 2. a report on recent or new events in a newspaper or other periodical or on radio or television.

    The so-called journalist’s smart-alecky remarks are one reason readership is down. Engage your readers, or engage yourself in their lives and interests; don’t hold yourself aloof from your audience or disdain them as uneducated boobs whom you need to enlighten.

  • astorian

    Okay, so some (maybe many) mainstream media outlets don’t care to cover mainstream Christian events because such things are old hat, have been covered for years, and just aren’t that interesting any more.

    I get that. Fine. So I expect that these same media outlets will skip coverage of the next annual Gay Pride parade. After all, such events have been going on for decades now, and they can’t possibly still be interesting to anyone.

    Right?

  • Ken

    And then there was the Christmas the DMN religion section had as it’s largest article complaints of how inhospitable visitors find church congregations. There was the article on deceased local worthies: Dr. W.A. Criswell and Mary Kay Ash, both prominent Baptists, were caricatured as grim hicks, while the liberal (don’t remember who it was) had a warm, pleasant picture and article. Who remembers the time one of the local papers (it might have been the Ft. Worth paper) carried a small bit on the first area Promise-Keepers conference. News value? 60,000 men in the first local meeting about spiritual matters? Is that newsworthy? The small article concerned itself with one thing, that being that one of the sound towers was toppled by the wind.

  • Michael

    Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I couldn’t help thinking that the News is selling ads to English-speaking people (mostly Protestant) who observe Christmas, but their news pages have nothing really for those people. I mean no disrespect to my Latino brothers and sisters in Christ, but how many of them are buying the Dallas Morning News? Maybe I’m too sensitive about this, but I get the feeling that my local newspaper is bored by ordinary northern European Christians who live in the suburbs, even though as far as I can tell from reading business trends stories, it’s people like us who are the few remaining subscribers to newspapers.

    Of course, if you talked to Latino readers, they would say that the only place where they are acknowledged is in DMN’s Spanish-language paper. Catholics would say they are tired of reading about Megachurches in Plano. African American readers would say they are tired to reading about Catholics and white megachurches. Gays would say their religious services are never covered at the largest gay church in the World. Jews would say that their religious services are rarely given attention and the Solstice-celebrators would say “It’s about time, because the DMN has been ignoring us for decades.” Orthodox readers will complain because they insist they are never talked about in the newspaper.

    Because people who expect the newspaper to be a mirror of their lives is always going to be disappointed, because there is only so much space in a day. If you cover the megachurch pagent, it may mean minority religions who are never covered will again be ignored. If you don’t cover the Spanish-language mass, Latinos will properly ask “Why are you ignoring the fastest growing demographic in the region.”

    It’s difficult making news decisions and mistakes will be made. Covering only North Texas protestants for decades left newspapers like the DMN in a position where they were alienating lots of other readers and completely lost demographically. Now, the pendulum has swung–according to some people–in the other direction and those folks are being ignored despite being the main subscribers (and, I would add, if they are the main subscribers to DMN, then the paper has serious problems that aren’t going to be solved by further covering only that demographic that is not really reflective of the whole of metro Dallas.) Hopefully, there can be an equilibrium, but that equilibrium will still not make people happy.

  • Connie

    Truth in advertising moment: Let the readers here understand that the lovely photo of Dallas reflected in the waters of the Trinity River shows the river at flood stage. About 98% of the time, the Trinity River is more like the Trinity Trickle.

    As for the Dallas Morning News, the “usefulness” of its current print edition, shaky at best, has been surplanted by its Religion blog. The print edition has little to recommend itself anymore, although it did offer interesting and useful information soon after its inception.

  • Jerry

    Terry, I was struck by your comment that the left perspective is:

    the purpose of news is to educate the mainstream readers who need to have their world views broadened until they resemble those of journalists:

    What was actually written? Something that struck me quite differently

    The goal of a local newspaper is to cover events that are newsworthy and interesting. The goal is to get readers to consider things they’ve never considered before, open a door to something they don’t know much about, to tell the untold stories. It is not to always just hold up a mirror for the reader so that they can gaze at themselves, although clearly there is a role for that.

    Perhaps the right does not want to cover interesting stories, get readers to consider new things but only to allow readers to gaze comfortably at themselves? Perhaps the right does not want readers understanding of the world broadened but kept narrow and familiar? That’s how I read your comment but I suspect you did not mean that.

  • Matt

    And then there was the year that Saint Seraphim’s Nativity services were not only covered by the DMN, but made the front page above the fold — probably because there was a great picture of a cute kid kissing the hand cross held by the Archbishop in all his regalia. It wasn’t exactly “news,” since Saint Seraphim’s has been serving Christmas since 1954. It was definitely coverage of local Christian worship services.

    And this year’s Christmas paper had our cathedral iconographer interviewed for an editorial (OK, not front page). Pretty good commentary.

    I’m not sure I miss the religion section so much; it declined after Paul Buckley was ushered out. But I don’t know that the DMN needs to be beat up too badly; my first reaction to this blog wasn’t too far from the first quote — increase in non-Christian “worship” (or non-worship) at Christmas is news.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    KEN:

    “And then there was the Christmas the DMN religion section had as it’s largest article complaints of how inhospitable visitors find church congregations.”

    Actually, that sounds like a very important and timely article and one that people would be interested in reading — inside and outside congregations of various sizes.

    It would be interesting to see if there is a difference between oldline and “seeker friendly” churches, or differences within the same denominations.

    That would be a huge story to research, actually, to do it well.

    JERRY:

    “the purpose of news is to educate the mainstream readers who need to have their world views broadened until they resemble those of journalists…”

    Several things were going on when I wrote that, but primarily my readings in the (1) Pew studies on class issues in journalism, (2) the NYTs self studies and (3) the studies done a decade or more ago by Peter Brown.

    But much, of not most, of the trouble with religion news coverage is that the interests of editors are not those of their readers.

  • Michael

    But much, of not most, of the trouble with religion news coverage is that the interests of editors are not those of their readers.

    Which readers? A Solstice celebration would be of interest to many readers. Coverage of a Latino service would be of interest to the over 1/3 of Dallas that is Latino.

    What you seem to be saying is you believe editors don’t have the same interests as suburban–and affluent–white readers who have been the primary focus of newspapers for decades. Since most editors are likely suburban and relatively affluent–and overwhelmingly white, according to most data on newspaper staff demographics–maybe those editors are concerned about the class issues that the Pew studies point out and strive to cover things other than what their neighbors are talking about in tne aisles of Whole Foods.

    The decline in newspaper readership which triggered the focus on expanding the diversity of newspaper staffs occurred because the kinds of people who now allegedly feel ignored were the only people whose names and faces and lives showed up on the pages of metropolitan newspapers. And that occurred because the writers and editors lived next door to those same people and they all looked and acted the same.

    Of course, we need newspapers that represent our communiities. If the DMN REALLY reflected the Dallas community, it would probably be even LESS white and suburban-feeling than it is now. That’s the great irony of these discussions. The people concerned about not being reflected in the newspaper are actually over-represented in how they are covered, how they advertised to, and how the editorial page reflects their values.

    Terry and his emailer are concerned that the DMN ignores traditional Christians because that’s the lens they read the newspaper through. I could easily find 50 DMN readers who would argue that traditional Christians and their values are given too much coverage in the DMN, because that’s the lens they read through the newspaper through.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Michael:

    Please read what I actually write, instead of what you think I write.

    And read the Pew and NYTs studies.

    Cheers.

  • http://religion.beloblog.com/ Jeffrey Weiss

    Thanks for continuing this thread. It’s a good ‘un.

    Hm. Speaking only for my own work here at the DMN. I wrote about the iconographer twice. With some very nice photos, btw. I’ve covered events at Prestonwood Baptist Church. I’ve written stories about Eid services. I covered the visit of the Armenian pontiff. Our stories about W. A. Criswell have included long explanations about his importance to Dallas and the larger Baptist community. I commend in particular the obit, largely written by Helen Parmley. As for Mary Kay Ash, in my GA days I covered the annual Mary Kay convention here twice and I can assure you that none of the people I quoted saw her as a grim hick. I covered two Promise Keepers rallies in these here parts. And the Billy Graham crusade. And so on and so on and so on.

    I suggest that those who see a “left wing” anti-religion conspiracy at the DMN are making the “constellation” error. Yeah, there are dots that you can connect, but the only way you can come up with a picture of a bull up there in the sky is to ignore all the other dots. And yes, we have had balanced stories that identified the clay feet of some of our local religious figures. But that’s not hardly all we’ve done. (Which is not to claim that every story or any story was perfect. None of them were, any more than any human endeavor can make that claim. But journalism is an incremental effort.)

    As for the question in question: What would you want to see in your newspaper about Christmas and why? I daresay that none of the critics who have written in needed to be told that Christmas was coming. Nor did those who attended the Prestonwood annual event (where this thread started) need a recounting of what it was they saw. If you’re looking for evangelism — a retelling of your particular theology — that’s what your church bulletin is for. If you want your newspaper to confirm your impression of the importance of your church, well, those who do not attend may not agree. And even the largest megachurch in Dallas represents only a tiny percentage of the population.

    So you are the editor of the Dallas Morning News the week before Xmas. What’s the news here? What do you assign — and more importantly — why?

  • Michael

    Please read what I actually write, instead of what you think I write.

    I’d appreciate the same courtesy

    See, for instance,

    here is the archetypal comment from one of our faithful readers on the journalistic left, which means, in this case, that the purpose of news is to educate the mainstream readers who need to have their world views broadened until they resemble those of journalists:

  • Michael

    “And read the Pew and NYTs studies.”

    I have. I understand the concerns. But there’s a lot in those studies beyond your specific agenda and the agenda of this blog and I think they say a lot about journalism. It’s not a simple problem.

  • Chris Bolinger

    …the purpose of news is to educate the mainstream readers who need to have their world views broadened until they resemble those of journalists

    Terry, you hit the nail on the head and drove it deep into the wood. Bravo.

    To succeed, a business must understand the needs of the majority its prospective customers and then provide products and services that address those needs better than competitive offerings. Newspapers fail because arrogant writers and editors write and publish articles that appeal to them and not to their prospective customers, most of whom they disdain.

    A Solstice celebration would be of interest to many readers.

    Show me the marketing research that backs that claim.

    Coverage of a Latino service would be of interest to the over 1/3 of Dallas that is Latino.

    Are they prospective customers, i.e. readers of the paper? Just because someone lives in the area does not make him a prospective customer. Marketing 101, Michael.

    Of course, we need newspapers that represent our communities.

    No. That is the academic or governmental approach, not the business approach. The business approach is to determine what prospective customers want and need and then deliver it. You make this determination by doing actual research, not by making assumptions based on your experiences.

    …people…expect the newspaper to be a mirror of their lives

    No, they don’t. People expect the newspaper to focus its attention on the issues that are most important to them. Every time a newspaper gives short-shrift to the needs and wants of the majority, the newspaper pokes the majority of its prospective customers in the eye. Why would I buy a newspaper that doesn’t respect me as a prospective customer?

  • http://religion.beloblog.com/ Jeffrey Weiss

    Chris, here’s the money quote from your post:

    To succeed, a business must understand the needs of the majority its prospective customers and then provide products and services that address those needs better than competitive offerings.

    No kidding: Explain to me how stories about things the majority already knows about serve the needs of that majority. The various news media have survived and succeeded for a couple of centuries on the premise that serving the needs of the majority means telling them, in large part, what they do not already know. That the business model isn’t working so well now doesn’t mean the content model necessarily has failed. Take my challenge above. What do you put in the paper — and why?

  • Matt

    Chris, you’re suggesting the primary function of the newspaper is entertainment, not news. Or at least, reporting news that makes the majority of its readers feel good, and feel good about themselves.

    I would suggest the majority of the readership (at least of the dead-pulp edition) of the DMN is older, white, and well-off. So what do we do with an editorial pointing out that a significant fraction of Texas’ population is dirt-poor? It’s true, and needs attention. Should the paper leave it out because it’s not going to make the majority of the readership very happy?

    More abstractly, I don’t think newspapers are quite in the business you think they’re in — or at least, they’re not selling their product quite the way you expect them to. And if they’re on hard times, blame the internet and the decline in literacy first, not their editorial policy.

    I’m a Christian, and living in Dallas. I have to agree that Prestonwood’s Christmas service isn’t news (but it is news when they build a giant new building on the edge of town, and have controversy over a steeple and a local airstrip). Ten years ago — maybe more recently — I’d never heard of a “solstice celebration” — so yes, I’d say it’s newsworthy.

    I think Jeffrey’s question is right to the point.

  • Asinus Gravis

    Apparently those yahoos at the DMN need to do polling every week (at least) to find out which of the events breaking in the world that coming week they would like most to know about–on a seven point scale.

    Then they can print only the stories that average a rating of at least a 3.5.

    Leave out all the rest of the stuff that only a minority of people are interested in–or not prescient enough to realize might be important to them and their lives.

    Now shape up guys! It going to be my way or the highway!

  • Jerry

    But much, of not most, of the trouble with religion news coverage is that the interests of editors are not those of their readers.

    Terry, so your point is that newspapers have gone too far and that’s a reasonable point to make. As Michael said in that quote you referenced, the point is to find a balance although I’m sure we all locate that balance point in a difference position.

  • Pingback: Nothing wrong with allowing a little constructive criticism « Suburban Messiah

  • Ken

    tmatt-

    Point taken, perceptions of hospitality are a valid religion story, but is the Saturday before Christmas the time to run it? Are there negative articles about mosques the week before Ramadan? Critiques of synagogues before Passover? I might add that for at least two years, the DMN religion section treated us to Jesus Seminar and John Spong on Holy Saturday.

    Mr. Weiss,

    I was referring to a specific article with drawn portraits of Criswell, Mary Kay, and another guy. All three had died in the previous period of time. I seldom read your paper and have no doubt you have covered all of them and believe you have accurately reflected their significance to the Dallas religious community. Of course, you make my point: the people who knew Mary Kay and Dr. Criswell found them sophisticated and witty. That specific article did not. I’m Catholic, btw, not a fundamentalist Baptist.

    I think it was the Star-Telegram, not the DMN that failed to report on the first Promise-keeper’s conference. I think they got complaints, because they did cover the 2nd and 3rd conference. To be fair to them, they have run two positive articles on Catholic matters in the last year, with large, attractive pictures.

  • http://religion.beloblog.com/ Jeffrey Weiss

    Um. Ken, you’re leveling a critique of the whole of religion coverage in the DMN based on one story? With all due respect, that’s off the mark. No single story, single issue of the paper, single week or month of coverage is going to remotely reflect the broad spectrum of faith. Over the course of time, however, a good general-market newspaper should touch most of the bases.

  • http://www.bridegroompress.com Steve

    I’ve read and commented on the DMN religion blog for several months. I’ve been struck by how shallow the coverage is, how little any of the reporters really know about any of the particular religions they vainly attempt to cover.

    There is very little difference between DMN’s religion coverage and the National Enquirer’s coverage of UFOs – both tend to be equally well-grounded in a solid understanding of the relevant subjects.

    While I never read the paper edition of the DMN religion section when it was available, DMN’s religion blog is a fine example of why the paper as a whole is dropping in circulation along with all the other papers in the nation. I used to buy the Sunday edition – I don’t bother anymore.

    Newspapers exist to manufacture news – that’s the only way to explain why news “slows down” during holiday periods (when reporters and editors like to take vacation). They sell what they manufacture to a particular base.

    Unfortunately, you can’t be all things to all people.

    When the culture fractures, you can’t even be all things to a large minority of the people.

    The MSM, with the DMN in amongst the vanguard, helped fracture the culture and, ironically, they destroyed their own base in the process. They lengthened the long tail and they can’t feed on the skeletal corpus anymore – it’s too thin.

    So, they’re caught constantly fretting about how to appeal to everybody, as they end up appealing to no one. But that’s alright. They’ll find new jobs eventually.

  • SCS

    Here is the truth:

    The DMN is a liberal newspaper. The staff bloggers (Jeffrey Weiss, Bruce Tomaso, etc.) for the DMN blog are very liberal. Some are atheists and others are very liberal “Christians”. Don’t take my word for it..notice the stories they cover and the comments they make regarding those stories. It is obvious. Therefore, the reason they cover events like the winter solstice and not mainstream Christian events is because they are promoting events that correspond with their backgrounds, views and beliefs (for the most part – they will cover some mainstream Christian events to not make things so obvious). The 3 bloggers (Asinus Gravis, Ed Cognoski and Al-Combova)that frequent and make comments on the DMN blog the most are all atheists that loathe Christians and are friends with the DMN staff bloggers. They are pushing their agenda. This is common knowledge to many of us.

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    Michael, thanks for coming into the discussion and offering your view. Decisions on what to cover, and how, don’t happen the way folks tend to assume they do . . . but, i have a disagreement with your take.

    “Covering only North Texas protestants for decades left newspapers like the DMN in a position where they were alienating lots of other readers and completely lost demographically.” Your core assumption here is that the mistake that led to the readership crisis which is snowballing into an advertising crisis is neglect of growing audiences, and i suspect (you can certainly tell me i’m fullavit) your secondary assumption is that the rise of, um, this stuff — the internet — added momentum.

    Were you actually “alienating . . . readers” with your mainstream coverage in the past? My read of the data available, combined with a strong intuitive suspicion, is that newspaper reading, and leisure reading in general, has been declining in social significance and personal priority from well before the web swung into view.

    TV is the usual culprit named here, but even that i wonder about, though the correlation between the increase of TVs, viewership, and average hours watched per person and the decline of newspaper subscriptions and time spent browsing headlines and leads is quite complete. Correlation ain’t causation, though.

    So if i don’t buy your argument that you were alienating readers by pandering to Bubba, what’s my point? Well, first, you just sound so annoyed at an e-mailer to Terry who bent over backwards to say “i’m not saying i’m right, i’m not saying i oughta be right.” Their point was that if the ad dollars you’re dependent on look strongly Bubba-licious, why work so hard to be un-Bubba-ish? If your underlying point was that the future of Bubba in Texas and the US is limited, and you’re trying to build a set of niche markets into a future base, while not entirely chasing off the current funding from Bubba-biz, why not say so? That’s what i see y’all as doing, and it makes a certain sense, except i don’t think it will work. ‘Nother blog, ‘nother post.

    Contrariwise, this reminds me of much of the “decline of the mainline/oldline” debate in church life, where some greatly enjoyed slamming the denominations as rotting from within due to their liberalism. Whatever the merits of the claim that denominational leadership has been more liberal than pew-sitters, you can’t just make that argument. When American Legion posts and Moose lodges and Republican Party precinct organizations and bowling leagues have all dropped the same amount over the same period of time (hmmm, same period and gen’l percentages as newspaper impact), you can’t just say “libs shrink, conservatives grow.” We’re missing a level of systemic change behind the fluster and bluster of debate over who gets the good deck chairs on the Titanic.

  • Jerry

    We’re missing a level of systemic change behind the fluster and bluster of debate over who gets the good deck chairs on the Titanic.

    I agree and think that is a critical story to understand.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    We have several voices here saying several things. As always, Michael is actually to the left of the MSM, criticizing it from the left. Jeff is in the MSM and trying to explain what the perspective looks like inside that, uh, troubled ship.

    One other thing must be noted. I remain:

    (1) Pro-Solstice story.

    (2) Pro-more coverage of the majority forms of faith in the Dallas market. I believe the News has lost thousands of readers in recent decades from the more conservative side of that market because, as I stated before, it is essentially a National Council of Churches newspaper in a National Association of Evangelicals town.

    But one thing must be said about many of those evangelical readers and you’ve seen hints above.

    Many of them DEMAND what is essentially a PR approach to news. They DO want what Michael would say that they want — a PR coverage of the 17th year of the born-again Nutcracker. They would not, for example, want that story about why churches — left and right — often reject newcomers. They would not want my story on why the megachurch pageants often shut down the smaller church concerts and pageants in a kind of survival of the fittest social Darwinism.

    So we have several different camps in this thread. I just wanted to stress that there are several positions that remain committed to NEWS content in all of this.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    JEFF:

    Are you disagreeing with Martin Marty’s many statements that the press has trouble understanding that more traditional, orthodox forms of world religions are on the rise while more tolerant, concessive forms are in decline? Are you disputing that basic trend?

    Just asking. Also, do you join Michael in his active denial of the critical elements of the NYTs self studies and/or the Pew Forum materials on journalism become an elite, cut-off culture?

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Some readers might enjoy an old, Swift-ish piece that I wrote long ago on why journalists cover the Episcopal Church so much. This might apply, in SOME ways, to the “seven sisters” in general (but not completely, as you will see)….

    http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/tmatt/freelance/ecpress.htm

  • Michael

    do you join Michael in his active denial of the critical elements of the NYTs self studies and/or the Pew Forum materials on journalism become an elite, cut-off culture

    Where is my denial on this???? In fact, I said exactly this, the newspapers and editors are educated elites who focus primarily on what they over hear at the Whole Foods and from their neighbors. These primarily white, educated suburbanites skew how we coverage news.

    Where we differ is on the impact. If you are an elite, cut-off from the culture in Dallas, it’s likely most of your life is surrounded by megchurch-going whites in Plano. White, church-going Protestants are the Dallas ruling class and therefore exactly the people journlists know.

    While they may not go to church at the same rates, they have a lot more in common with Latte and Christ crowd in tony Dallas suburbs than they do with people who have Virgin of Guadelope shrines in their homes or who celebrate the solstice.

    Again, I’ve read the studies and agree with their conclusions. I’m not in denial. We just disagree on what it means for newspaper coverage. In a place like Dallas, traditional Christians aren’s some hard-scrapple group of anonymous victimes who journalists would never come in contcact with. They are the ruling class that journalists are a part of, which is why covering only pagents and the goings on at Evangelical outposts would be deficient religion coverage in Dallas.

    Our difference is in perceptions. While you pin my perspective as being left of the MSM, I’d actually consider it center left. A left critique of the MSM would be much more critical and suggest the press is far too complacent in accommodating power and elites. That’s not my critique. My position is much closer to Jeffrey Weiss’.

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    Tmatt –

    Disagree with Martin Marty? Do i look that crazy? (Don’t answer that.) No, the global trend is clear. I was honing down to a purely US take, re: conservative institutions and liberal elite leadership of them, such as the Seven Sisters. I spend lots of time working with congregations of The Episcopal Church and United Church of Christ, where David C. Cook VBS material and Ideals magazine and Reader’s Digest still define the bulk of the daily environment for church life. It’s complicated, to say the least.

    The “elite, cut-off” nature of journalistic professionals was an area i was tap dancing around, wanting to invite Michael to say a bit more, but i see he did, so i’ll just say — there it is. He, and my editors (broadly speaking, since i’m edited in any given month by five or six people of varying personal worldviews), think they aren’t that liberal, because they know so many more liberal folk.

    Which is exactly what i experience in the other half of my life when i work with middle judicatory folk of the Disciples and TEC or UCC. They really and truly are constantly feeling guilt over the degree to which they think they compromise true progressive ideals for pragmatic dealings with the congregations they know are their base. Which, i’d add, is much more conservative than they even acknowledge (trust me, i have these discussion/arguments all the time with them).

    You can be harsh and say they oughta leave the nice job they’ve got (they’d argue it isn’t that nice, compared to what their old college classmates are doing now in NYC or whathaveyou), and go where their beliefs really fit in (but MoveOn only has so many job openings), but they truly feel that it’s their job to transform the institutional church (DoC, TEC, UCC) into the vision they share, while not upsetting the “old guard” in the pews, which they don’t even notice is largely replaced by people with the same traditional perspective who are now younger than they are. And the dance goes on.

    The point i wanted to reach, re: Pew studies, is that journalism looks frighteningly similar to the Seven Sisters, to nine decimal places. And the cries of “professionalism” mingle with indignance everytime one of us out here in the hinterlands dares point out that their arguments for “what news should be” sounds suspiciously like elitism. “How dare you accuse us of that!”

    Which reminds me that i’m looking forward to reading Jonah Goldberg’s new book coming out in a couple weeks . . .

  • Michael

    I was honing down to a purely US take, re: conservative institutions and liberal elite leadership of them, such as the Seven Sisters.

    This is an interesting point, but I’m not sure this is an exclusively liberal phenomenon. The leaders of any group tend to be more ideologically polarized than the the people they lead. Conservative religious leaders are more polarizingly conservative than their flock. Thus, the moderate rebellions that have taken place in U.S. conservative denominations. The people who lead the Southern Baptist Convention or the LCMS are more conservative than the people in the pews and–just like the leaders of the TEC or UCC–are trying to transofrm the institutional culture. They are just moving right instead of left.

    That’s not to say that your average SBC in the pews is the same as your average Methodist in the pews. Instead, it means that although your average Baptist may be conservative, they aren’t nearly as conservative or ideological as their leaders. The same is true for Methodists or TEC who are liberal, but nearly as liberal as their leaders.

    BTW, I don’t consider religious conservatives “Bubbas” and I doubt anyone in the DMN newswroom does either. To the contrary, in a place like Dallas, religious conservatives are the ruling elite who have dominated the region for generations.

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    Fair point, Michael; you in no way said anything Bubbalicious. I was looking for a shorthand, quick way to say “ruling hegemony class” without sounding too terribly pompous. And your point about polarizing leadership is an excellent one. I’m in favor of professionals generally, and generally concerned about professionalism, which gives those polarizing groups in leadership a place to stand in defending their extremism. But Southern Baptist leadership seems primed to do as much damage to their institution in the next few decades as Mainline/oldline Protestant leaders did over the 60′s and 70′s.

    Which says what to the vocation of news gathering, writing, and editing? I still stand on my concern for a tone of “eat your spinach, we know what’s best,” while Tmatt’s point about many folk wanting pure flackery/PR for their journalism is equally true, and warrants a strong case made against it by professionals, journalistic or clerical.

    And i’m intrigued by the NEH data coming in on reading in general, and tracing what it means to talk about literacy and a literate culture, both in media and church terms. Somewhere about now is where Terry will cheerfully remind me that many parts of Christendom did quite well without a literate population, and it isn’t intrinsic to much in the life of faith.

    The roots of faith in a democratic culture, though, require the watering not so much of the blood of tyrants, IMO, but of a well-read middle class. Mainline/oldline Prots are a core expression of the faith of a democratic republic, and if folks aren’t reading or well informed about their community and government, i’m not sure what either will end up looking like.

    I really, really appreciate this conversation.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    To the contrary, in a place like Dallas, religious conservatives are the ruling elite who have dominated the region for generations.

    ***

    That is simply wrong, as anyone who has lived in Dallas or studied the city knows. It’s ruling elites have leaned toward United Methodism and other banker churches.

    I also remember that Peter Brown, in his studies of the lifestyle gap between journalists and their readers, said that the biggest gap he found was in — Dallas. Not the east coast. Dallas.

    Peter, of course, is no conservative. But here is a link to a Julia Duin story from about that time:

    http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/4th_estate/media_gap.htm

  • http://religion.beloblog.com/ Jeffrey Weiss

    Oh, sigh. I guess I need to correct the canards from Steve and SCS.
    I’ve been covering religion for about 12 years. Bruce is the former Religion editor. Sam has been on the beat a couple of years but has more than 25 years as a journalist and an abiding interest in the topic. Y’all can check the blog out on your own and reach your own conclusions about what we do and do not know. You can also read those comments by Steve that did not violate our rather broad standards of acceptable civility.

    As for SCS. He’s wrong on every point. He has no idea what any of us actually believes (and he might be surprised). We have no more to do with who comments our our blog than the GR folks have to do with who comments here. And we’ve never met any of the commenters he mentioned outside of e-conversation.

    Beyond that, I’m totally enjoying the ebb and flow here and I’ll back out and let it continue…

  • Michael

    While Methodists once undoubtedly ran Dallas, is the current cultural landscape the same? The people who make decisions at the Chamber of Commerce, on suburan school boards, in business associations, the heads of law firms. Are they the Methodists of the past or the Evangelicals of the now? I think you have a stereotype of Dallas that underestimates the power of Evangelicals. Why is that?

    I agree with his conclusion about where journalists live. Which supports my point that they are living with affluent Evangelicals in Dallas every day.

    You are aware that Evangelicals in Dallas are college educated and have money, Terry, don’t you? Ask your friend Rod about this? So if they are as affluent as journalists, if not more so, why would journalists be cut-off from their cultural experience? They are the people at Whole Foods and Starbucks, at the soccer leagues and the community associations. Brown’s analysis supports my point.

  • Ken

    you’re leveling a critique of the whole of religion coverage in the DMN based on one story?

    No, that’s just the story to which you made reference. I gave several examples of the problem. I also acknowledged that I haven’t been reading your paper for awhile, so it’s possible that I missed some positive coverage.

    This, however, interests me,

    Many of them DEMAND what is essentially a PR approach to news.

    since it’s my reference (the hospitality in churches story) that seems to be part of it.

    Mr. Mattingly: PLEASE, it’s not the nature of the story that I don’t like. For my part, I don’t mind some critical coverage of the Church. In fact, I had occasion during the sex scandals of ’02 to send a complimentary email to DMN staff. The stories were fair, by and large (unlike the national media, but that’s another story).

    But you know what? The week before Christmas, I don’t want to read negative things about churches. I’d take some PR. I don’t want to read about the Jesus Seminar during Holy Week. Actually, I don’t want to read about the Jesus Seminar ever again. Muslims don’t get this treatment. Why do Christians?

    Look, I’m a Catholic and can tell you about unfriendly parishes, not of few of which are more tribe than community. They are like an East Texas town: you ain’t from around here, are you? But you can tell the story as a series of whines from outsiders (like me) or you can tell the story of how communities struggle with being close vs. being in-bred (or something like that). It’s a valid story, but how you tell it and WHEN you tell it says a lot about your organization.

    BTW, someone mentioned that large gay congregation. Did the DMN cover their transfer from the MCC to the United Church of Christ? THAT would be an interesting religion story.

  • SCS

    Jeffrey,

    You are lying. But, I knew you would since you are trying to hide your agenda.

    If anyone reads the stories you “promote” or the comments you make on the DMN blog it is obvious that all of the staff are atheists or very liberal. You can deny it all you want but you are lying. As a matter of fact I made the same post on your DMN blog and you blocked it. You have blocked numerous comments from me because you want to suppress the truth. You are trying to push your liberal worldview on others by “promoting” certain stories just as you did with the winter solstice story. What did the winter solstice story even have to do with religion? Nothing. Those people are atheists or agnostics. Yet you give them coverage over the multitude of local Christian events because you are “promoting” their anti-God worldview. And politically, there is no question the DMN blog staffers hate conservatives. Again, just read the DMN blog..they are constanly ripping on Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, O’Reilly, etc. when the stories have nothing to do with religion. As I stated, the 3 bloggers (Asinus Gravis, Ed Cognoski and Al-Combova)that most frequent and make comments on the DMN blog are all atheists that hate Christians (again just read their comments) and are friends with the DMN staff bloggers. I would have a tiny respect for you if you at least admit the truth but you never will. Again, that would expose your agenda. It is no surprise the DMN paper has suffered greatly and the DMN blog has pathetic activity as evidenced by the few comments – most people in this city are wise to what is going on and do not support this garbage.

  • http://religion.beloblog.com/ Jeffrey Weiss

    Dear SCS,
    To quote James Thurber’s wonderful line from The Unicorn in the Garden:

    “You are a booby.”

    Sincerely,

    Jeffrey Weiss

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    SCS –

    Whoa, there, hoss; Rod Dreher and Unfair Park’s Bible Girl are conservative-hating atheists because a big chunk of their comment traffic is hostile to organized religion of any sort? That would be the import of your comment about the DMN blog. Folks who are comfortable lurking or commenting their way through the blogosphere know how to sort out the background radiation from the actual transmissions — you’re reading static as a signal.

    As for Ken and Jeffrey’s notes, i’m still trying to figure out the terrain that lies between endless micro-segmentation of audiences (or congregations) and the old middle-brow, homogenized, melting pot mass culture that assumed we all were well served by thirty minutes from Uncle Walter, Chet & David, or the other guy (Carreras?). The facts of history say that in the 1890′s there were umpteen papers in most cities plus a raft o’ broadsheets and periodicals, morning and evening, and the era of univocal media was a brief, passing phenomenon mid-century. I’m just interested in trying to figure out which way the frog’s gonna jump, but i’m not likely to ask a J-school M.Journ. editor for tips. They turn to you and explain why the frog actually doesn’t want to jump, but is driven by forces beyond his ken.

    Meanwhile, the frog jumped, i lost my money, and the crowd has moved on to Texas hold-’em. Unfortunately, Rupert Murdock is the dealer (or is it George Hearst?).

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    BTW, in all fairness, i live in central Ohio, so the DMN can and should ignore me. But this conversation could be held with a modest change in proper nouns about, say, the Columbus Dispatch, so i feel like i have a frog in this race.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    I just got off the highway here in Virginia and saw the nasty turn here on the comment page.

    So I spiked a few of the recent acidic comments.

    Back to quoting specific issues and acting like GetReligion readers.

    Calm down people.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Matt (#16): Chris, you’re suggesting the primary function of the newspaper is entertainment, not news. Or at least, reporting news that makes the majority of its readers feel good, and feel good about themselves.

    I never wrote or suggested anything of the sort, Matt. I’m a businessperson. I have an MBA and am a VP of Marketing. What I am writing here is business basics, Marketing 101, if you will. A newspaper is a business. Readers and advertisers are the customers, but readers are the primary customers, because advertisers place their ads based on who is going to view them.

    Any business, including a newspaper, must decide who its prospective customers (its targets) are and what their needs and requirements are. Then the business must create products and/or services that meet those requirements better than competitive offerings.

    I suggest that many of the people who decide what religious stories are run in major U.S. newspapers don’t know who their prospective customers are or what their requirements are. Or they simply don’t care.

    I would suggest the majority of the readership (at least of the dead-pulp edition) of the DMN is older, white, and well-off. So what do we do with an editorial pointing out that a significant fraction of Texas’ population is dirt-poor? It’s true, and needs attention. Should the paper leave it out because it’s not going to make the majority of the readership very happy?

    I don’t work for the DMN, so that’s not my decision. If the people who run the DMN don’t know what types of stories will attract prospective customers and what types of stories will repel prospective customers, then the people who run the DMN should be fired by the owners of the DMN. Period.

    More abstractly, I don’t think newspapers are quite in the business you think they’re in — or at least, they’re not selling their product quite the way you expect them to. And if they’re on hard times, blame the internet and the decline in literacy first, not their editorial policy.

    From a business standpoint, that is an absurd statement.

    Jeffrey (#15): Explain to me how stories about things the majority already knows about serve the needs of that majority.

    I never wrote that a paper should do stories on what the majority already knows, Jeffrey. What I wrote, several times, is that a newspaper needs to focus its attention on the issues and in the areas that are most important to the majority of prospective customers. I even compared a “news” story on a Solstice celebration to a “feature” story on a group that does a very popular and successful Christmas pageant or event.

    The various news media have survived and succeeded for a couple of centuries on the premise that serving the needs of the majority means telling them, in large part, what they do not already know.

    No kidding.

    That the business model isn’t working so well now doesn’t mean the content model necessarily has failed.

    I agree. The scary thing — and this should terrify anyone who works for a newspaper — is that newspapers really don’t know why they are failing. They are quick to point fingers of blame at everyone but themselves and the possibility that they are failing for the same reason that many businesses fail: failing to respect the customer. I see plenty of evidence in newspapers and on this blog that people who make editorial decisions in newspapers hold the majority of their prospective customers in contempt.

    Take my challenge above. What do you put in the paper — and why?

    I make critical Marketing decisions for my own company, not yours, because I have a thorough understanding of the prospective customers for my business, not yours. If the DMN really wants an answer to your question, then it should get serious about gaining an intimate understanding of its prospective customers. What I see on this blog is newspaper period arguing with and belittling prospective customers. Not a good business practice.

  • Chris Bolinger

    newspaper people, not newspaper period…sorry

  • http://www.bridegroompress.com Steve

    What I see on this blog is newspaper people arguing with and belittling prospective customers. Not a good business practice.

    Exactly. That is a perfect thumbnail description of the DMN religion blog.

    Their religion writers – even after years of experience in “covering” religion – don’t understand the basic theology (which is, in part, the mindsets) of the people they cover. Instead, they make snide remarks – making fun of what they don’t understand.

    This is not limited to the religion blog, of course. Every aspect of MSM news coverage devolves into this. It is simply most evident in their coverage of religion.

  • Joseph B

    After reading the comments its strikes me how egotistical many of them are.

    They are suggesting that the readership is thin skinned and ought not and wont want to hear criticism of an alleged majority viewpoint.

    Further, there are suggestions that the majority wants to read about itself!

    I just see it as more of the usual self delusions by a certain segment of Xianity.

    It goes like this: Anytime someone wants to discuss any movement or group that isn’t *their* Xianity (which is inevitably THE best Xianity) two things happen. First, they will try to criticize it on non-rational and solely religious grounds while holding the attitude that their criticism is perfectly rational and whilst rejecting any rational or non-rational religious criticism of their own positions. Second, they will hold the attitude that Xianity, the majority religion which enjoys nearly unapproachable special privilege, is somehow “under attack” or “threatened,” by the mere mention and discussion of people with differing views.

    Inevitably this leads to the “You ought to cover us because we are so great” mentality, which you see reflected in some comments here and many of the comments in the “getreligion.org” link above. Go and read how many say things to the effect of “You ought to cover us because we are a majority.” It strikes me as highly egotistical and self centered to suggest that the majority of readership would want to read about what the majority of readership would allegedly be doing and thus already know about.

    The comments hint at the crux of the issue when they say things like “17th year of the born-again Nutcracker.” and how large some church is. Everybody already knows about these large groups. Why continue to hammer us with them? A religion section of a major daily doesn’t need to be yet another church bulletin promoting the biggest that everybody already knows about. Its readership is better served by giving a complete picture and not just serving as a promotional tool for the majority that the majority already knows about.

    DMN being liberal? That’s insane. Compare it to the Dallas Observer, pegasusnews.com, and the the number of other small news sources which by and large REALLY are openly liberal. Then compare it to other dailies in other major markets. It is one of the most conservative if not THE most conservative out there of local dailies.

    J

  • Chris Bolinger

    My previous response was deleted for reasons unknown. So I will keep this short and sweet…

    Many local newspapers act like they are monopolies. And, in the narrowest sense, they are. Where cities once had two, three, or more major daily newspapers, most now have only one. Facing no obvious competition (from other local newspapers), editors at surviving newspapers don’t seem to care what readers want.

    How many newspapers do serious market research and adapt to the needs and wants of their prospective customers? The answer to that is obvious. Instead of being market-driven, newspapers are driven by the views of their editorial boards.

    Fortunately for the public, the Internet has opened to us a broad range of news and information sources, so that we are not held captive by local newspapers anymore. Caught in the act of running their businesses into the ground by neglecting and spitting in the faces of their prospective customers, newspaper people rush to tell us that we can’t live without them, that other information sources on the Internet aren’t really “news” sources, and that we are too stupid to figure out for ourselves what really is happening in the world without our trusty newspapers to show us the way.

    Companies in most sectors of the economy don’t have the luxury of offering their customers a sub-standard product and then respond to complaints by telling customers that the product is really terrific — the best thing for you, really — and that if you don’t like it then you can just shove it. Newspapers have tried that approach for years, and only now are some realizing that customers are leaving in droves and never coming back. Amazingly, many in the newspaper business still haven’t caught on as to why.

  • Michael

    we are too stupid to figure out for ourselves what really is happening in the world without our trusty newspapers to show us the way.

    The irony, of course, is that most of the “news” on the Internet is actually newspaper-provided content. Bloggers rely on newspapers and other traditional media as the basis of their blogopinions and even ideological blogs rely on the MSM for most of its source content.

    The problem with relying on the Internet for all your news is that you may know what’s happening in Islamabad, but won’t have the foggiest idea what’s happening around the corner, in the local school board, or on the city council. Except in the largest cities, the Internet has not become a good source for information about your neighbors and your own town. Only a local newspaper is able to do that effectively.

  • SCS

    Below is a recent example of a post by Jeffrey Weiss on the DMN blog that makes my point. From reading the below it is crystal clear that Jeffrey Weiss despises Baptists so of course he is going to disparage them every chance he gets. These types of biases are what play a major role in what stories are covered. These DMN staffers use their bully pulpit to attack others they dislike and to push their agendas. And that is why the DMN paper is doing so poorly and the DMN blog has little activity. People realize what is going on and do not want to have anything to do with it. I can tell you that is why I canceled my subscription.

    EthicsDaily’s ‘Baptist of the year’ — Al Gore
    9:50 AM Fri, Dec 28, 2007
    Jeffrey Weiss
    He’s a Baptist and he won the Nobel Peace Prize, so I guess that makes him a good choice for Baptist of the year? EthicsDaily, the website run by the moderate (meaning: not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention) Baptist Center for Ethics, says that big Al is the year’s top Baptist. Here’s a nugget:

    Gore has challenged that leadership deficit with a decisive doggedness that surely comes from the depths of the prophetic vision.

    Regrettably no Baptist has received less applause from Baptists than Gore, a shameful but not unexpected reality from a people snarled in religious fear, suspicious of science and stuck in the rut of spiritualized reading of the Bible.

  • Chris Bolinger

    The problem with relying on the Internet for all your news is that you may know what’s happening in Islamabad, but won’t have the foggiest idea what’s happening around the corner, in the local school board, or on the city council. Except in the largest cities, the Internet has not become a good source for information about your neighbors and your own town. Only a local newspaper is able to do that effectively.

    The only decent source of information about my neighbors, my school board, my city council, and my town is my local newspaper? Surely you jest. Ah, but I forget that you are an expert on everything and know so much more than I.

  • Asinus Gravis

    SCS has a reading problem.

    The critical comments about Baptists that SCS cited was a quotation from a Baptist website (EthicsDaily), written by a Baptist (Parham), discussing other Baptists (e.g., Southern Baptists).

    Jeffrey Weiss of the DMN said nothing critical of Baptists in this posting. To conclude that he did would seem to require the stupid assumption that everything the people running the blog post is something they agree with 100%.

  • http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/ Bruce Tomaso

    Terry,

    Just back from several days in NYC — there for Christmas, out before New Year’s Eve madness in Times Square.

    Catching up upon my return to Dallas, I was intrigued by the discussion, on your site and ours, about why The Dallas Morning News ran a story about a winter solstice celebration while ignoring much bigger Christian holiday celebrations, notably the extravagant Christmas pageant a Prestonwood Baptist Church.

    Don’t know that I have a great deal to add, but I will toss this out. One of the best newsmen I’ve ever worked for, Bob Early, the former managing editor of The Arizona Republic, used to observe that in deciding what’s news (always a subjective judgment ripe for second-guessing), newspapers often “assume the norm.” That is, we assume that most of the time, things are going to work the way they’re supposed to — and it’s news when that doesn’t happen.

    You never, for example, see a story in the paper saying that 100,000 people drove on the freeway yesterday and did not have an accident. We assume that most people, when they get in their cars, will arrive safely at their destinations. What’s newsworthy is the driver who doesn’t — the tragic case that does not fit our normal assumptions.

    Similarly, it really isn’t surprising that Christians celebrate Christmas. Or, to anyone who’s ever been to the place, that Prestonwood Baptist Church does so in a big, huge way. It is, however, a bit surprising that hundreds of people in Dallas would turn out to celebrate the winter solstice. For most of our readers, that is a “holiday celebration” outside the norm.

    And writing about it doesn’t make us anti-Christian or pro-pagan or hostile toward our mainstream readers or ignorant about religion or atheists or any of the other things that our hyper-exercised critics would like you to believe that we are.

    None of this is to say, of course, that we ONLY report about things outside the norm. We did, to cite but one of a thousand possible examples, note that the pope celebrated Christmas Mass — as he does every year, and will every year as long as there’s a pope and Christmas. It wasn’t surprising that he did so. But it was news.

    Finally, for the record, we had a Page One story a few years back about the Prestonwood extravaganza, an entertaining feature by David Flick of our Metro staff. It’s too old to exist still on our Web site, but if anyone wants to see it, drop me a line and I’ll e-mail it to you.

    This is not to say that we couldn’t, or shouldn’t, have revisited the Prestonwood pageant or found some other Christians-celebrate-Christmas story. After all, we find ways to write about the State Fair of Texas every year, just as some poor putz in Pasadena has to find a (supposedly) fresh angle every year to cover the Tournament of Roses Parade, just as New York putzes will have to cover, yet again, New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

    But choosing this once to write about a winter solstice celebration hardly means we’re promoting a liberal-atheist-radical-godless-Communist-Wiccan-heathen-baby-Jesus-hating-no-room-at-the-inn-for-you-Christians-who-hardly-ever-get-anything-written-about-you-in-our-newspaper agenda.

    Hope you, your family, your fellow GR toilers and your readers had a great Christmas.

  • scs

    Asinus,

    If you read the DMN blog you know that anything negative that comes out about Southern Baptists is posted in the blink of an eye. It is because of the strong dislike some of the staff has towards the conservative viewpoints of Southern Baptists. And of course you pile on because you dislike Southern Baptists for the same reason. I have read many comments by all and know this to be a fact.