The "State" of State Papers

 by  James Hefley                                                                                                                                     Vol. IX, No. 10, Nov/Dec 1996

     To read the editorials in some Baptist state papers, you'd think a new war is heating up. Politically-minded conservatives are out to replace every state editor that has tried to stay in the main stream of Southern Baptists. So the editorials and commentaries following the recent resignation of editor Jack Brymer in Florida seem to imply.

     Jack said his resignation came after years of differences with his board on editorial decisions. It is no secret that some Florida conservatives were displeased with Jack's usage of the moderate news service, Associated Baptist Press, of which Jack's former assistant, Greg Warner, is now editor. But the impression given by some of Jack's colleagues is that he was pressured by conservatives who wanted him to reflect their views. "What will we lose," asks Alabama's Mark Baggett, "when we lose the power to criticize our convention?"

     While I have no bone to pick with any Baptist editor, I do get a bit weary of being reminded of the good old days when editors were allowed to be more even-handed than they can be today and Baptist Press could be trusted to provide balanced reports on denominational happenings.

     I'm not saying that Baptist Press under new leadership is perfect. I am suggesting that some state editors may be wearing rose-colored glasses in looking back to better times when they helped keep conservatives in their place.

     Kindly take a trip with me down memory lane to the early years of the conservative resurgence ("takeover," if you're a moderate). W. C. Fields, then director of Baptist Press, was speaking at a Baptist church in Virginia. [Fundamentalists], he said, "tell us they represent the majority of Southern Baptists, but they are only a tiny group among the 14.1 million Southern Baptists..."

     When Fields retired he really blasted conservatives. "An evil force," he said, had arisen "right out of the abyss" and brought "tragedy" to end the "golden age" (I 949-79) of Southern Baptists. "Never in our history has the devil won such a sweeping victory." So much for even-handedness from the man who had been the SBC's top news person for many years.

     The most influential of the old line state editors has been C.R. Daley, retired from Kentucky's Western Recorder. Daley was never one to butter-up opinions. In 1984 he told a class at Southern Seminary: 'With the exception of two or three smaller, less influential papers, like Indiana,...all of the old line, established state papers are remaining loyal to the denomination in opposition to attacks by fundamentalists." Daley was right on the money in assessing the positions of most state editors during the 1980s. I surveyed editorials in four high circulation state papers and came to the same conclusion.

     Editorial preferences for presidential candidates of the old order were obvious in the convention press room during the early years of the conservative resurgence. A few hours after Adrian Rogers was elected SBC president in 1979, a talented and influential state editor predicted to me that "denominational loyalists" would turn back the tide at the 1980 convention in Los Angeles., "We'll have, an advantage," he said. "the inerrantists cannot afford to bring as many supporters to L.A. Institutional people are on expense accounts and will be there..." [Bold print added. TCP]

     No bones about it, most state editors sincerely opposed the resurgence of conservatives. Schooled and socialized in the old order, they honestly believed the "Pressler-Patterson coalition" was a severe threat to the unity and ministries of Southern Baptists. These editors saw no liberal drift in the seminaries. They kept assuring their readers that denominational employees were loyal to the authority and inspiration ot Scripture. The only differences, they said, lay in interpretations.

     In the early 1980s I was a Ph.D. student in media at the University of Tennessee. Professors and fellow grad students talked nobly about integrity in journalism. News should be kept separate from public relations, they said. A newspaper or journal should never present a "news" story by an author employed by one of the persons he had written about.

     I knew that the Baptist Press system used stories by public relations people writing about the ministries of their respective agencies. I rationalized that this was okay, so long as they were reporting on ministries. But should an employee write a "news" story about a controversy in his agency? Should a Baptist editor run a dispatch from Baptist Press without identifying the employment of the author?

     One day at lunch I happened to notice a small, bare-boned BP story in the Tennessee Baptist paper about a court suit in which a Nashville jury had awarded a former Sunday School Board employee $400,000 in damages from the Board. The story was bylined by a PR employee of the Board, without noting the writer's employment. It did not include a single quote from the former Board employee who had won the suit. The next morning I read an expanded story in the Nashville Tennessean that noted the resignation of a string of high Board officials.

     Christianity Today asked me to write a full report of the court case. I was shocked and saddened by what I learned. The employee, an assistant personnel manager, had relayed to the Board president reports of serious misdeeds by several Board department heads. The president subsequently tried to commit the personnel man to a state mental hospital, without notifying his family. The effort went awry, the employee sued the Board, and a jury rendered a quick verdict and awarded damages.

     To my astonishment, W.C. Fields defended the news handling of the BP story. C.R. Daley, then chairman of the Southern Baptist Press Association Committee on Baptist Press, merely assured me his committee of state editors would be discussing the story.

     When Baptist Press policy did not change, I introduced a resolution at the next convention, urging BP not to have agency employees write stories on their employers "in incidents of court suits and controversies of substance." The resolution was referred to the SBC Executive Committee. I drove to Nashville and explained why the practice violated accepted tenets of journalism. Heads nodded in agreement.

     Three years later I published my first book on the SBC controversy. One chapter included my story on the news handling of the court suit against the Sunday School Board. The Board refused to let the book be sold in the Baptist Book store exhibit at the next convention.

     Conservative presidential victories, resulting in new agency trustees, have brought new leadership to the Sunday School Board and other agencies. Fewer changes have occurred in the offices of state Baptist papers where the conservative resurgence has had less influence than elsewhere.

     There are at least four reasons for this:

  1. Some state conventions are still controlled by moderates. The editorial policies of state papers in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina - to mention three - are not likely to change in the immediate future.

  2. Editors with long tenure tend to be supported by boards which resist the appointment of conservatives.

  3. Vacancies in editorial offices tend to be filled by members of the Southern Baptist Press Association (SBPA) where supporters of the conservative resurgence are a distinct minority. When an editor's job comes open, the vacancy will be filled by an assistant or associate editor from within the SBPA.

     Case in point: Several years ago a group of conservatives in a state inquired about my interest in becoming editor of their convention's paper. Before I could tell them I was not interested, members of the SBPA had their man in line.

  4. Few conservatives have established a track record in journalism which would qualify them for becoming denominational editors. This picture is improving, however, as conservative-led denominational agencies develop more journalistic talent.

     Frustrated conservatives in several states have started independent papers. Lack of financial support has held these papers back. The Baptist Banner in Virginia, edited by T.C. Pinckney, a retired military officer, has the most solid base. The independent Texas Baptist, edited by J. Walter Carpenter, recently published again to prepare conservatives for issues coming before the November state convention meeting.

     Conservatives do not have a national newspaper, as such. The excellent glossy tabloid, SBC Life, edited by Mark Coppenger [now by Bill Merrill], Vice President for Public Relations of the SBC Executive Committee, comes closest to filling that slot. Moderates have their own, well-written Baptists Today.

     Many out-of-state conservatives subscribe to and read the Indiana Baptist. The Indiana Baptist reaches far beyond the state. Pressures have been applied on the paper by none other than the former president of Southwestern Seminary. Russell Dilday told me personally that he had attempted to get my column dropped by the Indiana paper. He couldn't "think" of any errors. "I just don't like the tone of your writing," he said.

     When I expressed amazement that he would show such concern for one column in a little paper, he said, "[the Indiana paper] is influential beyond [its small] circulation. It ... has enormous influence."

     "The Hefley Report," as you can see, continues in the Indiana Baptist.

     'There are other encouraging indications of a more balanced denominational press.

     Herb Hollinger, the present director of Baptist Press, is performing well. As a former state editor from the conservative California convention, Herb is respected by current denominational leaders and the SBPA fraternity as well.

     News handling has improved among state papers. The employment of BP writers is usually given in the byline for articles, especially in reports on sensitive situations.

     The moderate Associated Baptist Press has rankled some conservative leaders who do not want ABP dispatches appearing in their state papers. I am not looking for another job, but if I were an editor, I would want to be free to select news from any source. All things being equal, however, I would give first preference to Baptist Press. And I would not expect the paper to pay for material from a press service that is largely supported by the competitive Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Will Rogers said, "All I know is what I read in the papers." All most Baptists know about their denomination is what they read in their state papers. These papers should be both fair and loyal to their supporting constituencies, if that is possible.

[Reprinted from the November 1994 Indiana Baptist.]