There are GetReligion readers who believe that we praise the Los Angeles Times too much. So let's poke the left coast giant just a bit this morning (as I sit here in a hotel lobby in Southern California).
The story in question is about Carl Amari, a media guy whose goal is to create another Passion-style evangelical wave with his The Word of Promise project, a gigantic, high-quality word-for-word dramatic reading of the Bible. So far so good. Here is one of the key paragraphs in the entertainment-section report:
The Christian consumer market has tight circuitry, and Amari knows that, depending on whether his project clicks there, it could become a hugely lucrative pop-culture phenomenon, a la Mel Gibson's "Passion," or a largely ignored curiosity piece, such as the film "The Nativity Story." A team of Bible scholars was brought in to fret over every inflection and pronunciation and to ensure that every line is true to the New King James Version of the Bible.
"When it comes to the Bible, you really can't get it wrong," Amari said. "You'll have people burning down your building. You don't want to get these people mad."
That sounds really good.
But there's a problem. The only version now includes this correction.
FOR THE RECORD: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the Bible edition being used in a new audio-book project as the St. James Version. ... The Bible being used is the New King James Version.
Absolutely amazing. As Frank "Bible Belt Blogger" Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette put it:
I can't believe this error found its way into a major American newspaper. I really truly can't. But the Los Angeles Times has managed to mangle the title of the most famous book in English literature.
Yes, friends, it appears the urban legend that the King James Version is uniquely blessed because it is linked to a biblical King James or to St. James has soaked into the copy desk of the entertainment section of the Los Angeles Times. Who knew there would a pack of old-fashioned fundamentalists (word used accurately) working in such a hip, edgy place?
Actually, I don't think that's the problem that led to this error.