On Thursday Matt was interviewed on Radio Rhema by their breakfast host, Tim Sisarich, on the topic of ethics in journalism. This was in the wake of the media frenzy over the Israelis killed in the Christchurch earthquake and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key’s rebuttal to claims that they were spies. The Murdoch saga was running at the same time.
Radio Rhema ran the interview 3 times on Thursday but in case you missed it, here was the intro and an MP3 (used here with permission):
“An Israeli news agency is slamming reports of Israeli spies working in Christchurch around the February earthquake.
The original story, by Southland Times Editor Fred Tulett has attracted criticism from Israeli groups in New Zealand – and now the editor of the Jerusalem Post.
An editorial in the paper describes the allegations as ‘far-fetched fiction disseminated by New Zealand news outlets’.
It accuses this country of being biased and says no tourists from any other country would have been the objects of what it calls, ‘unsubstantiated suspicion’.
This morning Rhema Breakfast host, Tim Sisarich, asked blogger and theologian, Matthew Flannagan, if we, as Christians and consumers of news, do enough to search out the truth behind the news we read…. “
Tags: Journalism Ethics · Radio Rhema · Tim Sisarich6 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Matt I assume when you talk about “facts” in the news, you are talking about what is true? If so, from a journalists perspective, what is in a story depends on what people tell the journalist, and what they quote – whether it it spin, truth, or otherwise.
Journalists don’t write truth, they write news, based on what people tell – or refuse to tell – them. Interviewees have their own spin on the story and often want to hide the truth. And the more we realise they are hiding it , the more newsworthy it is. The Murdoch select committee reporting is a case in point to some extent.
It amuses me that the Radio Rhema host refers to ‘the media’ in the third person…
Let’s not forget MEMRI.
Journalism, and most writing, is about spin. An article is written to (or for) a specific target audience. This is why we select the publications we read based upon the expected content.
Excellent article.
Well, every reader not just depend on what we read and hear on the news. We have the responsibility to know beyond what’s not seen.
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