Friday, April 25, 2025

M.Z. Hemingway

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Uh, that historic church that burned down? We are missing a key fact ...

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Every now and the, a GetReligionista (or in this case a GetReligionista emeritus) reads a short news report about some religion event or topic then pauses, a bit perplexed. It's like something basic is missing.

Consider the following perfectly ordinary story from The Argus Leader, a smallish Gannett newspaper in Sioux Falls, S.D. Does anything strike you as strange about the top of this story? Is something missing?

Three Dewey County men have been federally charged with arson and burglary, accused of burning down a nearly 100-year-old historic church.
Cody Yellow, 27, Robert Grindstone, 28, and Ake Kyle Eagle Hunter, 28, are charged with third-degree burglary and arson. Each faces 30 years in federal prison if convicted.
According to court records: Eagle Hunter told authorities he picked up Yellow and Grindstone in Eagle Butte then drove to the church on July 19. He said he went to the church to visit a friend’s grave.
Eagle Hunter said he was walking from the cemetery towards the front of the church when he heard a crash. He said he walked back to the front of the church a saw Yellow going into the church and knocking things over.
Grindstone, then, came in with some diesel fuel and started dumping it everywhere. Then, Yellow leaned down and lit the fuel, starting the fire.

OK, this is an interesting event. Perhaps even some kind of hate crime? Is this a church burning or merely a church that was burned?

But what very basic, key fact is missing? How about this: What is the NAME of this historic little church? Isn't that a rather crucial detail?


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Who am I to scrub? Did AP pull story about Pope Francis, teachers and same-sex marriage?

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If you have ever worked for a 24/7 wire service, or worked for a copy desk that deals with wire-service news copy, you know that it's very common for the Associated Press, Reuters and other wires to update stories. Sometimes they even add additional content – this used to be called a "write-thru" – that updates a story to make it longer and more complete.

Of course, there are also times when wire-service professionals make mistakes and, thus, their newsrooms issue corrections. Wire corrections are especially important since these organizations produce copy that is literally used in publications all around the world, as opposed to one news publication in one location. Wire mistakes were "viral" long before the digital concept of "viral" was even born.

What is rare, however, is for a wire service to make – to the best of its ability – a flawed or incorrect story completely vanish. In the Internet age it is ultra hard to scrub away evidence that a story was published.

However, that appears – I repeat appears – to be what happened with the story that GetReligion ripped into yesterday in a post that ran under the headline: "Associated Press editors seem to be saying, 'Who are we to report on Catholic teachings?' "

Now, when I wrote that post, this URL at the Associated Press site took you to a lengthy story that began like this:

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Pope Francis refined his vision for the church last week when he said long-spurned divorced and remarried Catholics should be welcomed with "open doors." And he has famously parsed centuries of thought on homosexuality into a five-word quip: "Who am I to judge?"


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Win for M.Z. New York Times issues late, late correction on Planned Parenthood

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Win for M.Z. New York Times issues late, late correction on Planned Parenthood

So how many of you assumed we would never, ever see a New York Times correction on the Planned Parenthood video-story error that GetReligionista emeritus M.Z. Hemingway has been protesting for several weeks?

GetReligion has been seconding her motion over and over, too. We are talking about the original David Daleiden video of the encounter with a Planned Parenthood leader named Dr. Deborah Nucatola.

Now, the Times has a reputation for having one of the best correction desks in all of journalism (GetReligion folks used to get actual calls from real, live human beings there all the time), so this correction is, on one level, not surprising. The error was clear, after all.

As M.Z. wrote, using the Times online correction form:

Phrase in Question: "Mr. Daleiden released what he called the full recording last week after Planned Parenthood complained of selective, misleading editing."

Your Concern (please limit to 300 words): –- This is completely in error. The full recording was released 21 seconds after the edited version, according to YouTube records, many hours before Planned Parenthood tried the public relations spin accepted by some reporters. ...

So now, late, late, late – after most readers have surely moved on – we can see that the following text has been added at the end of the online story.


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Classic M.Z. on Planned Parenthood, media bias, religion and Gosnell flashback

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As I noted the other day, the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway has been involved in a very revealing standoff with The New York Times over a very basic issue of fact linked to the undercover Planned Parenthood videos being released by Catholic activist David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress team.

Hang on. In a minute we'll get to to a recent Eric Metaxas Show interview with M.Z. about the mainstream press, abortion, #AnotherBoy, classic GetReligion, Dr. Kermit Gosnell and several other topics of interest to readers of this weblog.

But first, unless something has happened that I have missed, Hemingway is still trying to get a correction from the world's most powerful newspaper, one noted for the excellence – under normal circumstances – of its corrections desk.

So, one more time, here is the Times online form that she has filled out to make her complaint. The key to her claim is the basic fact that almost all websites have built-in clocks, so you know when people posted something or made a basic change in a post. Thus:

Article Headline: Planned Parenthood Tells Congress More Videos of Clinics Might Surface

Date Published: Web: July 20, Print: July 21

Web or Print: Both

Phrase in Question: "Mr. Daleiden released what he called the full recording last week after Planned Parenthood complained of selective, misleading editing."

Your Concern (please limit to 300 words): –- This is completely in error. The full recording was released 21 seconds after the edited version, according to YouTube records, many hours before Planned Parenthood tried the public relations spin accepted by some reporters. ...


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New York Times on the Planned Parenthood videos: It's all politics, politics, politics

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Media coverage of the Planned Parenthood-undercover-abortion-videos matter has been underwhelming to say the least. However, this week there have been a few more articles out there about the controversy – plus a third video.

The latest non-news news is that Planned Parenthood has actually asked the media to back off from the story and to date, I've seen no media organizations tell PP to go take a hike. Just before Planned Parenthood's request came this New York Times story about how Republicans are taking advantage of it all.

WASHINGTON – Rick Perry’s voice softens when he talks about the joy he gets from looking at his iPad and seeing “that 20-week picture of my first grandbaby.” Marco Rubio says ultrasounds of his sons and daughters reinforced how “they were children – and they were our children.” Rand Paul recalls watching fetuses suck their thumbs. And Chris Christie says the ultrasound of his first daughter changed his views on abortion.
If they seem to be reading from the same script, they are.
With help from a well-funded, well-researched and invigorated anti-abortion movement, Republican politicians have refined how they are talking about pregnancy and abortion rights, choosing their words in a way they hope puts Democrats on the defensive.
The goal, social conservatives say, is to shift the debate away from the “war on women” paradigm that has proved so harmful to the their party’s image.
Democrats were jolted by the latest and perhaps most disruptive effort yet in this line of attack by activists who want to outlaw abortion: surreptitiously recorded video of Planned Parenthood doctors casually discussing how they extract tissue from aborted fetuses.

Once again, we have a story that uses the much-maligned Planned Parenthood videos as a segue into what many reporters *really* think the debate is all about – politics and politics alone. No religious beliefs. No convictions about the science issues involved.


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UPDATED: MZ's requests for a Planned Parenthood related New York Times correction

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The Planned Parenthood fetal-tissue story rolls on in alternative media, with a second undercover video (unedited version here) offering some interesting headline hooks, for those with the stomach to use them.

One key word is "Lamborghini."

The hot phrase for the day is "less crunchy."

Will journalists be willing to interview Planned Parenthood defectors on some of these issues?

A day or so after the first David Daleiden video production surfaced, featuring a Planned Parenthood leader named Dr. Deborah Nucatola, I asked a basic question. If the first reports, mostly in conservative media, were based largely on the press materials circulated by the Center for Medical Progress, I wondered to what degree the mainstream news stories that were eventually published would center on the public-relations DNA of Planned Parenthood.

Now, a website called (C.S. Lewis trigger alert!) TheWardrobeDoor.com has noted an interesting problem at the end of a New York Times report in which Planned Parenthood leaders warn their supporters in Washington, D.C., that more videos are on the way. This passage, featuring Planned Parenthood lawyer Roger K. Evans, is at the very end of the report.

A Biomax representative at least once was admitted by Planned Parenthood employees to “a highly sensitive area in a clinic where tissue is processed after abortion procedures,” Mr. Evans wrote. Another time, a Biomax representative asked about the racial characteristics of tissue provided to researchers; anti-abortion activists have often alleged that Planned Parenthood engages in “genocide” of African-American babies. And Biomax proposed “sham procurement contracts,” offering one clinic $1,600 for a fetal liver and thymus, Mr. Evans said.
In the video, Dr. Nucatola says that clinics charge $30 to $100 for a specimen. Mr. Evans, in his letter, noted that she also said 10 times during a two-and-a-half-hour lunch that the charges were for expenses, not profit. But, he added, those statements were not included in the initial nine-minute video. Mr. Daleiden released what he called the full recording last week after Planned Parenthood complained of selective, misleading editing.

So what is the problem?


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Planned Parenthood video Stage 3: New York Times explores an ethics question!

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I don't avoid the world of advocacy journalism online, but I also strive not to live there. However, I often bump into links that take me into liberal and conservative "news" sites and, every now and then, you hit some interesting info worth exploring (especially when there are URLs to original documents and sources).

If journalists are willing to do that kind of thing, this work could be part of what I called – in an earlier post – the Stage 3 coverage of the Planned Parenthood video story.

One such site is The Blaze, which actually has a piece online pointing toward some interesting trails. Click here to go there. Let's start here:

While activists have doubled down, Planned Parenthood responded ... by dismissing the allegation and claiming that its clinics simply help women who wish to donate the tissue of aborted fetuses to scientific research. On the other hand, Snopes.com, a fact-checking website, labeled the claim against Planned Parenthood by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life group, as “undetermined” based on the evidence.

Precisely! "Undetermined," as in journalists cannot avoid doubting and exploring the truth claims offered by Planned Parenthood and the same goes for its critics. What we need here is old-school journalism, which requires showing some skepticism after reading the press releases on both sides.

The Blaze team then talked – wonder of wonders – to a pro-life activist outside of the New York City-Washington, D.C., corridor who has (gasp) not made his mind up when it comes to judging the final outcome of this case.


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Planned Parenthood video: Stage 3 news offers voices of reason vs. politicians

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I've been in New York City the past day or so taking part in a conference focusing on Plato, Augustine, Machiavelli and Obergefell. Sort of.

I haven't really had time to dig into the whole Planned Parenthood video media storm, but have followed some of the debates (hello @MZHemingway, hello @spulliam). In a way, the entire affair has followed a very familiar pattern.

Stage 1: Activist group on the cultural right releases advocacy journalism piece making strong claims that clash with the views of most mainstream journalists and focus on charges that are almost impossible to verify in a matter of Internet minutes.

State 2: Mainstream press either (a) ignores the story or (b) says that the heart of the story is something like "right-wing group's video goes viral in conservative media, leading to outrage among sane people who support the abused liberal group." How many headlines did you see with that tone?

Stage 3 is where we are now. Many, but not all, elite publications are covering the story, in part because the offended group – Planned Parenthood in this case – has put out a press release and started returning calls from journalists. The story is now legit.

This leads to another formula that has been seen many times in the past: Short restatement of right-wing accusations, followed by lengthy coverage of the response from liberal group, followed by – here is the key – lots and lots of reactions from Republican lawmakers courting the religious- and values-voter base, which means this whole affair is simply a matter of politics.

Business. As. Usual. #MovingOn.


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From old Kellerism to new BuzzFeed: The accuracy and fairness debate rolls on

I have been using the term "Kellerism" even more than normal, as of late, usually with a URL attached pointing toward a collection of GetReligion discussions of this reference to former New York Times editor Bill Keller.

Perhaps we need to pause and revisit this topic for a moment, in light of discussions of the state of American journalism in the wake of the 5-4 Obergefell decision at the U.S. Supreme Court. In particular, we will be hearing from GetReligion emeritus M.Z. Hemingway. Our own Bobby Ross, Jr., just took a look at a Poynter.org essay on this topic.

But back to Kellerism. One of the links in that URL collection links to the first of two essays marking GetReligion's 10th anniversary. Those seeking more materials on this topic should also read my original "On Religion" column – "God and The New York Times, once again" – focusing on some 2011 remarks by Keller (see the video at the top of this post). At the top of that column I note:

When it comes to the daily news, the recently retired editor of The New York Times has decided there is news and then there is news about religion and social issues.
When covering debates on politics, it's crucial for Times journalists to be balanced and fair to stakeholders on both sides. But when it comes to matters of moral and social issues, Bill Keller argues that it's only natural for scribes in the world's most powerful newsroom to view events through what he considers a liberal, intellectual and tolerant lens.
"We're liberal in the sense that ... liberal arts schools are liberal," Keller noted, during a recent dialogue recorded at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. "We're an urban newspaper. ... We write about evolution as a fact. We don't give equal time to Creationism."
Moderator Evan Smith, editor of the Texas Tribune, jokingly shushed his guest and added: "You may not be in the right state for that."
Keller continued: "We are liberal in the sense that we are open-minded, sort of tolerant, urban. Our wedding page includes – and did even before New York had a gay marriage law – included gay unions. So we're liberal in that sense of the word, I guess. Socially liberal."

And there is the key point, centering on the words "Aside from."


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