Seeker4,
Then Carmel wrote: "Since yesterday I have been having an exchange with Wendy at the Oregonian in Portland. Essentially, she feels she needs to remain "neutral" and present a "balanced" story. My comment to her was in so doing, she inadvertantly was promulgating the party line of the JWs and that apparently reporting facts wasn't as important as opinions regardless of their veracity."I agree with you, Seeker4, but when it comes to objectivity and balance, I don't think Wendy did too terrific a job. She got a couple of facts wrong, and mischaracterized people in a way that suggested she had some bias in favor of the Witnesses. For example, here are some quips from the article:Sorry, Camel, but a good reporter will do exactly as Wendy has done. You're asking her to take a side in her reporting, which is journalistically unethical for her. The Code of Ethics adopted by the Soc. of Professional Journalists states: "Diligently seek out the subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing."
Now anti-Witness Web sites are abuzz with accusations. "Who in their right mind would ever want to stay in this horrible, horrible, hateful religion?" one posting reads.Is that the best quote she could find from this site? This quote (Farkel's) is fine for what it does say in a certain on-line context, but as a representative of all quotes from this site, or all the perspectives former Witnesses may have, it comes off as if the person who wrote it is bitter for no reason. Especially when we then read:
But critics attack the practice as cruel and destructive.Why the word "attack"? Why not the word "reason"? Or some other more "neutral" word? See how a simple word choice changes the way a group of people are characterized? From this article, I was left with the impression that ex-Witnesses are angry, belligerent people who can't clearly articulate their ideas.
Here's an example of an omission of fact that would help ex-Witnesses:
Protecting the congregation's purity is the point of disfellowship. Members are kicked out before they can harm, or continue to harm, others with conduct or beliefs that contradict the Bible.Actually, Witnesses can be expelled for a lot more than that -- celebrating birthdays, for example -- and I hardly need to make a complete list here. Some very, very simple research would have cleared that up for Wendy Lawton.
There are other curious points in the article:
The shunned still can attend religious services, officials said, and conduct business with members. But Witnesses are instructed not to socialize with someone who is disfellowshipped.If the "shunned" can still "conduct business with members, then why did Casarona, who was disfellowshipped, lose "about a fourth of his real estate clients"? The article doesn't make this connection or use it to explore what disfellowshipping is really like. Couldn't she have looked into some of the Organization's literature, which is so widely disseminated throughout the public, instead of falling back on PR statements from nameless "officials"?
And then there are just plain old mistakes:
The killings in McMinnville last month -- the worst mass murder in recent Oregon history -- cast a spotlight on Jehovah's Witnesses and their practice of "disfellowship."
Who calls it "disfellowship"? It's "disfellowshipping" -- what you do to a verb to make it a noun (a gerund). You wouldn't say, I like the practice of run. You would say, I like the practice of running. As a professional writer Wendy Lawton should have known this, and as a journalist she should have gotten the vernacular right.
Jehovah's Witnesses are a made-in-America church that boasts 6 million international members. They believe in Armaggedon: The world will end, the wicked will die, and God will create a paradise on Earth for the righteous. The name refers to members' watchful return of Jehovah, or God.I know some people have complained about the second sentence, since Witnesses technically believe that all non-Witnesses will die. From my experience, most individual Witnesses are not emotionally invested in this belief, though their Organization mandates it, so the way this sentence is written doesn't bother me.
What does bother me is the last sentence quoted. The name "Jehovah's Witnesses" simple does not refer to members' watchful return of Jehovah.
(Also, she misspelled "Armageddon." )
Another mistake:
The Bible is their bedrock. Witnesses live their lives in strict accordance to its teachings and follow a rigid moral code. Stealing, drinking, smoking, premarital sex -- all are forbidden.
Witnesses are totally allowed to drink. Furthermore, the idea of a "moral code," much less a rigid one, is pretty alien to Witnesses, I'd argue. Mostly they "follow the direction of the faithful and discreet slave," or the Organization, a term Wendy Lawton should have been able to unearth without too much effort. Again, my problem here is that she got the vernacular wrong and wrote something that just wasn't true, giving Witnesses who might read her article an excuse to dismiss it.
Anyway, I'm not saying the whole article is inaccurate. But I hope I demonstrated that Lawton was not objective; her article favors the Organization, it seems. Of course, all of these issues are wound up in the more difficult questions of objectivity in the media, and whether it's actually an ethical possibility or not.
Dedalus