Might does not make mite (Updated)

February 6, 2008 By

a gift that pleased jesusFormer Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee had an impressive Super Tuesday and his victory speech was covered by all the networks and major media outlets. His speech was filled with religious imagery. ABC News’ Jake Tapper filed a great report on Huckabee’s standing, full of his notable context and analysis.

But, uh, check out these two paragraphs:

Huckabee’s message to supporters Tuesday night tweaked the institutional support and millions of dollars enjoyed by Romney, and he spoke with the biblical flourishes that the Baptist minister often adds to his speeches.

“Tonight, we are making sure America understands that sometimes, one small smooth stone is sometimes more effective than a whole lot of armor,” Huckabee told supporters. “And we’ve also seen that the winner’s might has more effectiveness than all the gold in the world.”

Tapper claims that Huckabee used biblical flourishes. And he did. You can read the full speech here. He compared himself to David of David and Goliath fame and he invoked Jesus’ own words about the widow’s mite.

Not, you will note, the winner’s might.

The reader who sent along the story had this to say:

ABC News is Biblically illiterate. When they are covering Mike Huckabee they really need someone who can recognize a reference to a passage that is widely known among educated people even if they are not church goers.

It is an unfortunate mistake. For future reference, journalists should note that the reference is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12:

Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”

When reporters don’t even get the reference, they can’t really be expected to ask any pertinent questions about whether Huckabee’s comparisons to biblical figures are apt or appropriate. This is why newsroom diversity is so important. Wasn’t there someone on the copy desk or in the newsroom who knew this basic fact about the New Testament?

UPDATE: The story has been fixed.

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Filed Under: Journalism, Politics
  • http://solomonsseal.blogspot.com Matthew

    I heard this particular speech snippet broadcast last night on NPR.

    He (Gov. Huckabee) clearly said “widow’s mite”. It wasn’t garbled or otherwise unintelligible. And it’s not like the miss-transcription makes any sense either.

    good grief…

  • http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NonDualBibleVerses/ Eric Chaffee

    You’d think a big network, having assigned a reporter to a minister/candidate, would have also assigned a “book report” on Religious Literacy, by Stephen Prothero. And maybe likewise to the editors, too.

    ~eric.

  • Michael

    Given that Tapper likely banged out this story in less than an hour and it was rushed onto their website, all of the newsroom diversity in the world probably wouldn’t have caught the mistake. It was an honest mistake that all journalists fear when they are taking notes and writing quickly and the copy editors are swamped with stories.

    The misquote make sense based on Tapper’s understanding and I would argue there are lots of people–even religious people–who wouldn’t have caught the problem with the quote on deadline. When a copy editor read the quote, it doesn’t stand out as odd and there wouldn’t have been a reason to question the quote or go listen to the speech. Chances are good that even a transcript not provided by Huckabee would have bungled it.

  • http://followingfrodo.blogspot.com Gord

    I did n’t see the speech so I don’t know, but it is in fact possible that the writer misheard what Huckabee said. ANd the mis-hearing makes as much sense as the actual quote does imho. ANd that is not a heck of a lot.

    Major news networks may not know what to do with faith talk. But mistakes do get made either way. ANd really Gov Huckabee, read the Mark passage again and please tell me what relevance it had to your speech? It wasn’t about the power of the gift, it was about the committment of the giver.

    THe David and GOliath reference? Well time will tell how apt it was. My hunch is that this giant won’t be slain, at least if the Republicans want a hope of winning the Big Show.

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  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Michael:

    You are sooooo funny. Again.

    In the context of his speech, in a flock of biblical references, “winner’s might” makes no sense at all. The ABC newsroom simply missed a very obvious biblical image — coming out of the mouth of a Baptist minister. Amazing.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Michael once again leaps to the defense of a clueless member of the press, excusing that person’s blatant mistake because the job is just so danged difficult. I heard the speech live and, as Matthew noted in #1, Huckabee didn’t stutter or slur but clearly said “widow’s mite”.

  • Grandmother

    Betcha anything, even if he’d used the correct spelling, the spellcheck would have changed it..

    Grannie Gloria

  • http://physicsgeekjesusfreak.blogspot.com FzxGkJssFrk

    Ha! That’s the funniest mistake in a while.

  • Jerry

    Might I call your attention to the fact that power(might) was not intended but someone might have gotten “might/mite” spelling wrong. As Grandmother said, the spell checker mighthave fixed it. I’ve had that happen over and over again and sometimes I don’t catch it.

  • Molly

    I don’t think Micheal is off base – Mollie herself asks if there wasn’t someone in teh room to read the copy and catch it and if, as this site so often claims the press doesn’t get religion, then “duh” there was no one in the room to catch it because they would not know to what Huckabee was referring.
    Gord’s comment is much more appropriate to Huckabee’s speech, but that is theological and not on topic at all.

  • http://employee.lasierra.edu/tzbarasc Tony Zbaraschuk

    The other thing to note is that “widow’s mite” is KJV language. Even if a reporter regularly read his Bible, it might be a more recent version that doesn’t have quite that phrasing.

  • Michael

    The other thing to note is that “widow’s mite” is KJV language. Even if a reporter regularly read his Bible, it might be a more recent version that doesn’t have quite that phrasing.

    Which was my thinking. The reference was lost on me, although I am familiar with the parable of the woman and the coins. Because, you know, in my church we called it the parable of the woman and the coins.

    So in a loud auditorium where the reporter doesn’t have the luxury of an amplified microphone like listeners at home, it is possible that even someone with a good understanding of religion and Christianity would not have understood what Huckabee was saying.

    Mistakes happen and they all aren’t evidence of Biblical illiteracy. Sometimes they are just mistakes on an intense newsnight.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a stupid mistake no matter how it happened.

    I don’t think there’s any reason to question the motivations of the reporter, however. It’s just a stupid mistake. Considering that the paragraph preceding and following the quote were all about biblical imagery, I’m curious if the reporter/editor thought that “winner’s might” was a further reference to David or what.

    Anyway, it’s also interesting that after ABC News corrected the story, the correction was not mentioned on the site. It seems like, in this case at least, a correction and explanation of where the error came in would have been good to include.

    And I agree with the reader who suggested that news outlets put on the Huckabee beat someone who understands religious imagery. He can’t stop himself with the Biblical references. I heard him reference the Gospel of Matthew today (something about “If I’ve gained the world and lost my soul, what have I profited?”). If you don’t know that’s a Biblical reference, you’re really at a loss when covering the man.

  • http://abcnews.blogs.com Jake Tapper

    Jake Tapper here.

    First – thanks for reading the story.

    Second — to answer your question — it was a transcription error. I was standing on the press riser in Little Rock for roughly 7 hours, and while trying to bang out that story on my laptop and also do live-shots for ABC News’ election coverage — not to mention do some reporting! — somehow that error slipped through the cracks and onto the website.

    I did know the story of the widow’s mite (though I confess, for some reason I wasn’t clear on the spelling of “mite” until today when I asked Gov. Huckabee about it). This wasn’t a matter of Biblical illiteracy, it was closer to Michael’s guess as to what happened.

    (And Mollie — correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Luke also contain a passage on the widow’s mite? I don’t think it’s just in Mark.)

    We didn’t publish an explanation to the error, since it’s generally not practice to do so with typos or transcription errors — we just fix ‘em!

    That said, I did write something on the two Biblical allusions on my blog earlier today –

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/the-biblical-al.html

    Anyway, thanks. Great website!

    Best

    Jake

  • http://rub-a-dub.blogspot.com Mattk

    “in my church we called it the parable of the woman and the coins”

    Tony,
    What do you call the parable of the woman who lost a coin in her house?

  • Joel

    I had never heard the parable of the widow’s mite. The NIV version of Mark 12:42 says

    But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

    “Copper coins” is also used in the NIV for Luke 21:2, and for both passages in the ESV.

  • http://www.mikehickerson.com Mike Hickerson

    I saw Huckabee’s speech live on ABC News, and anchor Charles Gibson immediately picked up on the widow’s mite reference. After Huckabee finished speaking, Gibson pointed out that Huck had just made two Biblical references. George Stephanopoulos, however, seemed to have missed the second one and started elaborating on the “David and Goliath” reference.

    Since Huckabee was referring to Romney’s wealth, I was a little disappointed that he didn’t pull out a reference to William Jennings Bryant’s “cross of gold.” :)

  • Dan Berger

    Mike Hickerson, it’s because the “Cross of Gold” speech was not about the ability of wealth to run roughshod over the electoral process; it was about what we would now call “expansion of the money supply” and “easy credit.”

    And about the spellcheck… it’s quite likely. You should never let your spellchecker correct your “mistakes” automatically, no matter how pressed for time you are. I teach organic chemistry, and still tell my students about the lab report I got discussing “inferred spectroscopy.”

  • rw

    Thanks Jake for stopping by and clarifying. Now and then we all make a mistake, and have to eat a little Crow’s Ear.

    (http://www.getreligion.org/?p=1525)

  • almondwine

    Mollie,

    For once I agree with you. I heard “widow’s mite” when I listened to the speech on NPR and was worried that I was losing my hearing when I saw written excerpts the next day.

    Don’t the campaigns provide written transcripts of these speeches to reporters for to check their own notes by?

  • Andy

    I once wrote a story that mentioned the Western Pennsylvania School For The Dead. The spell check didn’t get it, for obvious reasons.