Y’know how I’ve been writing about the templates that news organizations want to pour their stories into? A common one is the "conflict between two parties or points of view" template.
Theoretically, this is a balanced way of doing the news, but often it’s possible to tell the true biases of the folks doing the story.
LIKE IN THIS NYT-NOID STORY (QUOTING HANS KUNG NO LESS) WHICH CRITICIZES JOHN PAUL II AFTER HIS DEATH AND HAS THE LINE "NEED SOME QUOTE FROM SUPPORTER" AS A PLACEHOLDER THAT NEVER GOT DISPLACED.
They yanked the line from their web site, but quick!
Powerline comments:
There you have it. The Times’ criticisms are ready to go, a few good words for the Pope are an afterthought.
VIEW THE FULL SCREEN-GRAB OF THE NYT STORY.
(Cowboy hat tip to the reader who e-mailed!)
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
View all posts by Jimmy Akin
Thanks for covering this Jimmy. Powerline had this on their site, but since they’re all either Jewish or Lutherans, it didn’t somehow get the full impact of the NTY quote.
“Need quote from supporter” what the blazes does that mean? It seems they all do NOT support the Pope within the NYT, so they had to include the quote you mentioned. I’m not sure why this is not a bigger story. If the US Republican party had a media blurb as obviously flawed as the NTY story, then this would be HUGE news in the main stream media. However, since its the ‘beloved’ NYT I guess we’ll give them all a miss and say they were looking for balance.
Well, let us console ourselves with the knowledge that”Woe to you when all speak well of you,”