Ted Haggard & journalism.
Ted Haggard gave the keynote at the Religion Newswriters Association conference in September. He opened the talk by discussing his early interest in journalism. (Audio can be found here. The following transcriptions are mine.)
“I was excited about telling the truth, and helping people to be more truthful in public.” One of his tactics as a reporter for his high-school paper was to place a microphone in the teachers lounge and publish what the faculty said about students.
“If they were going to stand up in public and say how much they loved students…and then they’d get in the teachers lounge and talk about trying to put some of them in bed with them, and they would comment on their intellectual capacities, and comment on their bodies, then we thought that was newsworthy.”
But Haggard’s father wasn’t too taken with this passion for journalism. He offered Ted a car to bribe him into attending Oral Roberts University. Ted, never having heard about the school, did some research, and decided that matriculating there would be a unique opportunity to bypass journalism school by investigating Oral Roberts himself.
“I can skip journalism school if I can find out that Oral Roberts is sleeping with someone other than Evelyn, or if I can catch him in a lie, or if I can catch him faking miracles…stealing money or something like that. And so I went to Oral Roberts University fully intending to expose Oral Roberts in order to advance my career.”
This turned out to be great fun during his freshman and sophomore years, but finally disappointing.
“I can’t tell you the dismay I felt when I became fully convinced he slept with his own wife….It was the killer spike of my journalistic career when I found out Oral Roberts did not steal money. So because of that…I ended up in ministry…encouraging people to live a better life, and to live a life that was honorable, to keep their promises and keep their word.”
I wrote for an underground newspaper in high school. It was “underground” because if the principal found out you were writing for it, you’d be in hot water..
One of our bright ideas to increase interest in the publication was to take down license plate numbers parked in the lot of the local porno movie theater and match them up with numbers in the teacher’s parking lot.
After the initial little sanctimonious thrill of creating a big buzz, I felt ashamed and nauseated. As well I should have.
Journalism isn’t about “getting” people, though it does often mean letting people hang themselves on their own words and actions. When that happened in the “real world” when I was a reporter, I always felt terrible.
“Getting” religious figures has, sadly, been fairly easy pickin’s in the past couple of decades. And that has distracted people from the increasing need for good religion reporters–that is, reporters who understand and know how to get accurate information about the beliefs of different faiths and denominations.
I can’t think of any time in my lifetime when religion has so shaped politics and culture–or a time when so many religious groups were at odds.
I get the sense that many reporters skirt the underlying beliefs that drive those issues for many reasons. Some reporters prefer not to get embroiled in religious discussions, don’t understand religious issues, or don’t know where to go for definitive information.
Even a reporter willing to learn more about religious issues and with access to good sources may find the amount of theological jargon difficult to sift through, and errors can creep in.
Reporting about religiion is to report about ideas and beliefs–not facts and actions–which can make many reporters very nervous.
In addition, some reporters know that members of different faiths don’t always agree on how their faith should be interpreted or lived. (All they’d have to do, as an example, is visit one of the many Commonweal blog posts).
Sadly, whatever hampers reporters from doing a good job explaining issues and how religious belief drives them perpetuates the ignorance and mistrust we have for people of other faiths.
Haggard’s early interest in journalism tell us a lot. His interest in “telling the truth” seems to have been inseparable from a sleazy need to play “gotcha,” and from an equally sleazy inclination to investigate the sexual failings of others. so it’s much more than schadenfreude to note that Haggard’s downfall stemmed, not from a reluctance to “tell the truth” about others, but from an inability to admit and tell the truth about himself. Talk about sad but delicious irony.
After reading the NYT report about Haggard yesterday (and after posting the tanget above), maybe the lesson is less about the irony of Haggard’s yearning to “get” people and ending up being the one “got” than about how evangelicals handle clergy who betray the trust of their flock.
In the evangelical tradition, Haggard was examined by church leaders, and his expulsion was public and emotional, ushers armed with boxes of tissues, recalling the lugubrious public confession of the late great Jimmy Swaggart.
But any triumph Catholics might feel about Haggard ought to stick in our throats when we think about priests who committed actual crimes, were protected by diocesan authorities, and a scandal that has deeply divided lay Catholics who disagree over what’s to be done about it.
Unseemly and overwrought as these evangelical confessions are, they clear the air and allow people to move on, perhaps paving the way to forgiveness and redemption.
Here is the religious studies veteran Martin Marty on l’affaire Haggard : http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2006/1106.shtml
What do you guys think of it?
Jean’s points, as ever, are well taken. Catholics have enough to be embarrassed about . We should at least be able to understand the pain of others when their religious leaders’ failings test their faith.
Martin Marty’s stress in his last sentence on the vulnerability of many groups to the sort of painful experience represented by the Haggard affair is also worth thinking about.
In the Catholic Church, the cult of personality is not absent. Consider Fr. Maciel’s hold over a Legion determined to venerate and exculpate him no matter what.
And think about the way the unconsidered personal adulation that often colors Catholic attitudes to the Papacy can complicate relations between those elected to that high office and the rest of us.
P. S. Adeodatus, you have a great nom de guerre, but why so shy?
Wouldn’t it be grand for a person, church or country to just admit they sin and are in need of God’s grace and mercy. Instead when confronted me ennoble, we lie, we conceal.