Christian Journalist: Tell the Truth

According to a Gallup poll, only 8 Percent of Americans have a “great trust” in the news media.

Let’s just say that’s not a great number if you’re a journalist.

I deal with reporters every day and have a great deal of compassion for them. They are under immense pressure and scrutiny by managers, editors, and the reading public.

While I don’t believe there is a master plan to manipulate the public, there is a temptation for any writer to inject their own belief into a story. And as a word-guy myself, I know how easy it is to turn a story with a phrase or a well-placed sentence.

The concept of truth puts Christians who are in the field under an intense microscope, since truth-telling is a fundamental tenet of our faith. Those in the newsroom and those who are entering must be guardians of right and wrong.

Robert Case is a Christian journalist who blogs about faith and the craft and has a lot of wisdom.

He writes this, “The journalist is to discover and report the truth in a given situation to inform the public …This role is counter-cultural in our current journalistic environment and widely misunderstood as it concerns Christian journalists in the newsroom.

“To diligently report the truth in every situation is to take part in the cosmic struggle to redeem human culture,” he said.

The trick, according to Case, is to, in John Calvin’s words, “not to mix any of our own fictions” with the truth.

He observes, “Christians are not the only truth-tellers in the profession. Non-Christians can also speak the truth and Christians can lie.”

Read more at at Robert Case in Point.