Labels - And The PeeDee's Misuse of Them - UPDATED
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 12:18pm.
I read this in OPEN yesterday by Mark Naymik
Religious leaders who have accused two central Ohio evangelical ministers of using the pulpit to promote conservative politics plan to file a second complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against the ministers.The group of mostly liberal clergy from the Columbus area filed a complaint in January asking the IRS to investigate the World Harvest and Fairfield Christian megachurches and their affiliated organizations.
I wondered to myself why he had decided the group filing the complaint were "liberals" yet those being filed against were "accused conservatives". So i sent an email to find out.
Mark,
I'd like to clarify something you wrote at openers"Religious leaders who have accused two central Ohio evangelical ministers of using the pulpit to promote conservative politics plan to file a second complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against the ministers.
The group of mostly liberal clergy from the Columbus area filed a complaint in January asking the IRS to investigate the World Harvest and Fairfield Christian megachurches and their affiliated organizations. "
How did you come to the conclusion that these religious leaders were "liberal" ? Have they engaged in political activity to be labeled as such ? This would be important given the context of the issue. It would also be a serious charge and violation of their non profit status
Also, why is it that Johnson and Parsely are "accused" of being conservative, but these other religious leaders are simply and easily labeled as "liberal" by yourself.
This to me seems to be a double standard and a way of creating a sense of equivalence without providing substantiating material to do so.
Interested in hearing your response.
I got a response
As always, I appreciate your attention to OPEN.As for the item, I feel its straight forward. Two groups of ministers -- some consider themselves conservative and some consider themselves liberal. The labels comes from them.
I think your logic is a bit tortured in suggesting that my item creates a double standard. (I never described the churches complaining about Parsley and Johsnson as engaging in liberal political activity.) But it's your right to call it as you see it, even if that means pushing another false controversy.
Mark
Rather defensive for a few simple questions I thought, but if these 31+ ministers filing the complaint had indeed labeled themselves as liberal it would be fair enough, so i responded
Mark,
thanks for the response.Can you provide me any citations where these 31+ ministers describe themselves as liberal ?
Not sure how you can call a group of people liberal in a political piece and not have readers come to a conclusion their actions are politically motivated from a liberal perspective - when discussing allegations of conservative political motivation.
Not sure how i am pushing "another controversy" either by writing an email asking for clarification and further information on an important topic.
his response was somewhat, well, lacking.
Read into this what you want but I don't owe you a clarification or an explanation. I really don't have time to worry about providing you anything. Thanks.
There ya have it. The PeeDee's political team doesn't owe its readers any explanations about how they label people in their pieces, in fact we readers are just getting in the way of them going about their important job of journalisming.
We constantly see the use of labels by the media in the most arbitrary kind of way. they make their own value judgments when doing so instead of presenting the facts and letting readers come to their own conclusions.
I have seen other examples of this nonsense too. Sherrod Brown is not a liberal. He is a Democrat. You could also call him a Progressive as that is what he labels himself.
At best it is sloppy and at worst it is intentional to paint candidates and representatives with broad brushes for political purposes - and it really needs to stop.
[UPDATE] There is more at BFD about the history of some of this stuff.
heh
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 12:51pm.
because he misrepresents people to his readers ? No, that can't be it LOL.
mark should know better
Submitted by Tim Russo on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:05pm.
but unfortunately he's stuck in blog-hunker-down mode that the PD has perpetuated.
and to say that your respect for mark went up because he refuses to answer a simple question about how he characterizes people in his stories...well.....that's just idiotic.
and to say that your respect for mark went up because he refuses to answer a simple question about how he characterizes people in his stories...well.....that's just idiotic.
Well the PeeDee
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:11pm.
better come out of its blog hunker down mode and start doing a better job - because the days of not being accountable for what gets written is over.
We dont have to hope that a letter to the editor gets published anymore complaining about it.
Does that mean
Submitted by Ohio2nd on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:14pm.
that we have to stop calling them the Blackwell Blog?
doesnt look like it
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:17pm.
or we could just say "the conservative writer at the PeeDee's OPEN" since it is apparently ok to just throw subjective labels around based on personal value judgments.
"Accused conservative"
Submitted by modernesquire on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:39pm.
I agree with most of the post, but I don't see where he refers to them as "accused conservatives." The cited passage said they are accused of promoting conservative politics from the pulpit, but that's not saying they're "accused conservatives." It's saying they're conservatives accused of preaching politics from the pulpit.
Did the Openers entry change since you posted this, or am I mis-reading something here???
dont think it changed
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:47pm.
I'm not sure what the distinction is you're getting at.
If they are accused of promoting conservative politics doesnt that by extension make them accused conservatives ?
to clarify.
He directly asserts that the 31 ministers are liberals.
He does not assert that the 2 complained about are conservative - but accused of conservative politics.
No....
Submitted by modernesquire on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 2:13pm.
No, you can be a conservative without being accused of promoting politics from the pulpit. It's what they're doing at the pulpit that they're accused of, not being conservatives. I don't think there's any question by anyone that they're conservatives.
If A -> B does not mean B -> A. So, no, I don't think by extension that a person accused of promoting conservativism is accused of being conservative. According to the article, they are conservatives, no question. The only question the article raises is the allegation that they've used the pulpit to promote their politics which is unquestionably conservative.
My point is that he does assert they're conservative, not assert that they're accused of being conservative. He also doesn't assert that all 31 ministers are liberal, but mostly liberal (which is a less significant distinction because he still fails to state who and how that makeup was determined.)
My only point was that there isn't a double standard. He accused both sides of being either conservative or liberal, not "accused conservative" and "liberal" as you stated. A minor disagreement to a post that I otherwise agree with. I haven't seen any evidence that the complaining ministers are liberal or even are self-described as "mostly liberal."
I see what you mean
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 2:18pm.
Ok, i get what you mean now - though I dont think he asserts they are conservative in fact he calls them evangelicals, not conservative.
So the overall impression, at least for me was this :
two evangelical christians are being accused of preaching conservative politics from the pulpit by liberals.
that is one hell of a slant on the story to present to a reader without any factual basis.
who are ?
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 2:23pm.
I'm getting lost by labels here.
I think the problem is applying political terms to religious figures.
applying my own subjectivity - johnson and Parsely arent religious figures at all they are political operatives - which really is at he core of the issue these 31 are raising - and some are applying political labels to them to make this into a he said she said story.
Where is the story in the PeeDee that investigates the claims of the 31 ? Do they have a case ? All that gets reported is a he said she said BS.
it has to stop.
One
Submitted by Ohio2nd on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 2:33pm.
liberal Evangelical minister appears all the time on Al Franken's show. His name escapes me.
Jim Wallis? Or
Submitted by Lucie on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 8:59pm.
Jim Wallis? Or the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, who hosts a show on Sundays on Air America, "State of Belief"?
PD blog bunker
Submitted by Tim Russo on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:49pm.
"mostly"
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 1:57pm.
I should probably have made a point of the use of the word "mostly" too. does that mean 16 of 31 ? 20 of 31 ? 30 of 31 ? What label should one attach to those not labeled as liberal ? conservative ? moderate ?
unfortunately,
Submitted by RMC2000 on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 3:35pm.
it looks like defending the separation of curch and state is a cause left for liberals to persue. it continues to amaze me that defending certain provisions of the constitution is considered liberal. seems to me like it's just the right thing to do.
i agree
Submitted by staff on Tue, 04/04/2006 - 3:37pm.
sadly for the PeeDee it's just like reporting on a game.
LOL
Submitted by Ohio2nd on Thu, 04/06/2006 - 8:55am.
Personally applying wacky labels to groups is one of the fun parts of writing. I'd hate to have that restricted.
I think
Submitted by staff on Thu, 04/06/2006 - 9:08am.
if you think that, then you don't understand modern advertising and how it applies to politics.
Labels are very important. They are akin to product branding.
Most people make judegements of value based on Brands rather than impirical evidence. It takes a lot of work to over come this. Japanese auto making for example took years to rebrand as quality rather than junk.
So incorrectly or narowly branding politics by the press is dangerous.
right!
Submitted by JeanLR on Thu, 04/06/2006 - 9:23am.
branding is the dumbing down of our civic culture.
There will be some new and interesting coalitions forming as people wake up to the common threat to our Constitution, the rule of law and the reputation of our nation's Ideals.
Real conservatives generally are against this War and the so-called "neocon" worldview~
"populists", "progressives" (whatever) who are for, say, universal form of healthcare, can maybe reach out to Conservatives on the War issue (no Republicans are running against "preventive" war) and that will give us a chance to pitch them on the merits of the healthcare solution we'd advocate.
They need democrats elected in order to challange the "neocon" threat, no Repubs will do it. That is a great opportunity to change the red/blue framing forever.
My respect level for Mark Naymik . . .