November 30, 2006

"Brief news stories can seldom do justice to substantive conversations."

The Tennessean newspaper appears to be getting its first live demonstration in how the Internet has empowered its audience and its story subjects and enabled them to undermine the paper's gatekeeper-position in determining how news events are portrayed to the public.

After this story published Wednesday quoted Lipscomb University theology and ethics professor Dr. Lee Camp as saying Christians must "let go" of the idea that that their faith requires the creation of a Christian kingdom on Earth, the reaction was intense. Various bloggers weighed in, and more than 250 readers of the paper's story posted comments below the story on the paper's website, some criticizing Dr. Camp, others, including some who were at the interfaith gathering sponsored by Lipscomb University's Institute of Conflict Management - disputed the paper's description of what Dr. Camp said.

One student of Dr. Camp's wrote:

I am a senior this year at Lipscomb University. Having heard Dr. Camp speak in University Bible on multiple occasions, I can personally attest to the fact that his true beliefs were not represented in the Tennessean. Dr. Camp was misquoted and selectively quoted. ... It is unfortunate and shameful that this honorable man's reputation and the reputation of the University was marred for the sake of a "cover story." The Tennessean owes this man and the University a personal apology and has lost my respect as a credible news service.

I was glad to have attended the conference at which Dr. Camp spoke. Dr. Camp was mis-quoted and ill served by the Tennessean's account of the event.

Let it be known, first of all, that this reporter was not even present at the forum discussion.

Numerous readers believe Dr. Camp's views and words were deliberately misrepresented.

Reader "Barrett" commented:

Dr. Camp's statements were gravely misrepresented in this article. The idea of "letting go" of our Christian beliefs is not his. His words were manipulated to reflect the views of the author of this article.

"This is awful. Anyone else notice the breaks in that quote. Those are there because reporters want a story and don't care who they bring down getting it.

If you had attended the dialogue on campus yesterday you would be aware that whoever wrote this article for the Tennessean took bits and pieces of Dr. Camp's presentation and ripped them out of context to fit whatever agenda he or she was after.

Not only did readers - some of whom attended the event - call into question the paper's account of Dr. Camp's remarks, both Dr. Camp and Lipscomb University also fired back yesterday afternoon with statements posted online disputing the paper's version of what Dr. Camp said. To its credit, The Tennessean republished Dr. Camp's statement in its entirety.

The paper also noted the hundreds of reader-submitted comments in a brief story in which the paper holds to its apparently misleading portrayal of what Dr. Camp said, and quotes just one reader who commented on the initial story - a reader who liked what Dr. Camp was misrepresented as believing. The paper does not quote any of the comments from readers w.

The Lipscomb University statement is signed by university president Randolph Lowry and includes Dr. Camp's statement. In Lowry's portion, he writes:

As is often the case in dealing with difficult questions, misunderstandings or misinterpretations can occur. By now many of you have read the Tennessean article or heard various news reports purporting to summarize comments by Dr. Lee Camp. Having been a participant in that seminar and heard Professor Camp's statements, I can assure you the article printed in the Tennessean did not accurately reflect the substance of Dr. Camp's presentation or his personal beliefs.

Upon learning of the article in the Tennessean, we reviewed Dr. Camp's actual comments and sought perspectives from conference attendees. This e-mail from Charles McGowan, a prominent religious leader, was consistent with other comments we received:

"The Tennessean did Lipscomb and Dr. Lee Camp a great disservice in how they reported his remarks. He absolutely did not say what the paper reported him to have said."

That's right - and that's why the blogosphere is such a healthy addition to the media landscape.

The interfaith gathering at Lipscomb University no doubt lasted for a few hours and involved many speakers talking, and much discussion and dialogue. A 747-word newspaper story simply can not capture the complete truth of what was said and discussed - if the reporter even stayed for the entire event. In my two decades of experience in and around journalism, newspaper reporters rarely stay for all of such an event.

So, why did the paper publish the story it did? Did the reporter simply misunderstand what Dr. Camp was saying? Does the reporter, editor or paper believe that, in general, Christianity is more to blame than Islam for the conflict between Christians and Muslims? We don't know the answer to those questions.

What regular readers of The Tennessean do know is that the paper often when it writes about the relationship between Christians and other faiths tends to put the blame for conflict on Christians, and especially the political "Christian Right." Never mind that worldwide terrorism is fueled almost entirely by radical Islamists.

The weight of the evidence strongly suggests that The Tennessean grossly misrepresented Dr. Camp's remarks. If I were advising Lipscomb University - and, well, I guess I am at this point - I'd urge them to make full audio and/or video of the event available online, or at least the portion including Dr. Camp's remarks.

That's the power that the Internet gives to individuals and organizations to counter misleading, inaccurate reporting from the traditional media.

Memo to any university or organization holding an event that is potentially controversial and that will be covered by the news media: Make sure the entire event is both audio- and video-taped, and prepare a transcript in case the local paper misquotes someone or misrepresents the event. Let the media know in advance that the tape and transcript will be posted online soon after the event is over - and urge them to provide links to it on their website and provide the link URL in the print edition. Nothing encourages a reporter to be scrupulously accurate more than the reporter knowing the source material will be available to readers who wish to fact-check for themselves.

It also wouldn't hurt to invite a bunch of bloggers to live-blog the event as well - the more people covering an event, the more likely that a true and complete account will emerge.

Also, I'd encourage professors like Dr. Camp to blog. Here's why: If Dr. Camp had a blog where he had regulary written about the kinds of issus he discussed at the Lipscomb event, he would have innoculated himself somewhat against the backlash generated by the newspaper's misrepresentation of what he said at the event. Bloggers who took umbrage at his reported remarks could have quickly compared them to his blog - and Dr. Camp also could have rapidly posted a blog entry yesterday morning responding to the newspaper's account. In addition, by regularly blogging, a professor builds up the online public's knowledge of that professor, how that professor thinks, and what that professor believes.

If The Tennessean, for example, in reporting on a university event focused on business issues, that business professor and speaker Dr. Jeff Cornwall endorsed higher taxes and more government involvement in entrepreneurship during some business-oriented news event, it would be immediately obvious that they got it wrong.

"Brief news stories can seldom do justice to substantive conversations," Dr. Camp said, and that's entirely true in this case. The Tennessean provided the brief story, but the substantive conversation - about the paper's version of what Dr. Camp said, and about the issue he was discussing - was held in the blogosphere and online by ordinary people.

Journalism is different when the deer are armed.

[Full disclosure: I attended Lipscomb University from September 1982 through May 1985.]

Postscript: A word to the many politically conservative and/or religiously conservative bloggers who jumped all over Dr. Camp on their blogs yesterday based on the story in The Tennessean: What are you thinking? You don't trust The Tennessean on a regular basis to get the facts right or to represent conservative viewpoints accurately when it comes to a variety of issues, yet you blindly accepted their version of events yesterday. You ought to know better. Like you, I took immediate offense at Dr. Camp's alleged remarks as quoted by The Tennessean yesterday, but it soon occurred to me that he may have been misquoted, or taken out of context, so I held my fire, waiting for the university and Dr. Camp to respond - knowing, as both a Lipscomb alum and a former media relations specialist at another Christian university, that they would have to respond to limit the damage caused by the Tennessean story.

Other bloggers should have done the same - or done actual journalism by querying Lipscomb's media relations office or Dr. Camp's office directly for clarification of what he said and meant.