We live in a culture that is driven by many forces, and one of the most influential is journalism. Journalism is defined as follows:
Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information.
The question is whether there are any limits to what can be done to gather, assess, create, and present news and information. In April pro-life journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were charged with 15 felony counts. Their crime was publishing undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing how to “harvest fetal tissue” to preserve organs for sale. One of the charges in this case is that since Daleiden and Merritt used hidden cameras, they violated a state law that forbids recording “confidential” conversations without both participants’ permission.
President Trump has had a major war going on with journalists. No matter whether you love or hate Trump, the media has a very bad track record as far as reporting on him. The problem is that the media often interprets the news instead of reporting the news. The interpretation given by the media for many many years has been anti-Christian and pro-atheism. Studies of the beliefs of journalists at major news centers have shown a vast proportion of them have no religious affiliation. (So-called “nones.”) We have reported many cases in this journal where the bias of the reporter caused a misrepresentation of the facts. This is especially true when they are covering something immoral done by someone claiming to be a Christian.
We can expect intrusions by journalists to increase as they try to find things to denigrate Christians and the work that Christians are involved doing. In our own efforts, we have had some very bad experiences with journalists as well as some very good ones. Journalism is a great profession for a person with integrity and a willingness to report the news without distortion or bias. We desperately need to have journalists who present news and information, not opinions and agendas. Jesus told His followers to “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37)
For more on this see The Week, April 14, 2017, page 16.
The definition of journalism comes from:
https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-is-journalism/
–John N. Clayton © 2017