An Example of the Slow Death of Journalism in the US

I just read something that infuriates me, so I will share it, even if no one reads it.

Earlier tonight, I clicked on an article on my lovely hometown newspaper's website about Missouri repealing a minimum wage law, passed by the voters in 2006.

Here is a part of the article:

Members of a labor rights group called Missouri Jobs for Justice said the state should keep its current law in place. They said it helps workers keep up with price increases for things they need, such as food and housing.

“To working people (a minimum wage increase) really isn’t a raise,” said the group’s director, Lara Granich. “It’s really just a way of making sure you don’t fall behind.”

Alluding to lawmakers’ desire to cut spending and balance the state’s budget this legislative session, Granich also told committee members that workers who don’t make enough to keep up with inflation end up relying on state service funded by tax dollars.

Parkinson said he has seen pink and black bumper stickers from Prince’s business on many cars around the state. When the lawmakers said that demonstrated the loyalty of the store customers, Prince said the loyalty is the result of close ties his customers have to his employees.

“They’re loyal to Matt and Orlandez and the 23 other employees who work here because they’re really good at what they do,” he said.

In the second to last paragraph I became confused, because who are Parkinson and Prince? They never come up before or after in the article, so I searched for the same AP story in Google.

On Yahoo! I found the same AP article. Here is the same section:

Members of a labor rights group called Missouri Jobs for Justice said the state should keep its current law in place. They said it helps workers keep up with price increases for things they need, such as food and housing.

"To working people (a minimum wage increase) really isn't a raise," said the group's director, Lara Granich. "It's really just a way of making sure you don't fall behind."

Alluding to lawmakers' desire to cut spending and balance the state's budget this legislative session, Granich also told committee members that workers who don't make enough to keep up with inflation end up relying on state service funded by tax dollars.

Lew Prince, the owner of a vinyl record store in University City, said paying more than the minimum wage has helped him hire better workers than national chains paying minimum wage.

"I can compete on service," he said. "If we can force the large out-of-state companies to compete with me, I have the advantage."

Parkinson said he has seen pink and black bumper stickers from Prince's business on many cars around the state. When the lawmakers said that demonstrated the loyalty of the store customers, Prince said the loyalty is the result of close ties his customers have to his employees.

"They're loyal to Matt and Orlandez and the 23 other employees who work here because they're really good at what they do," he said.

See two more complete paragraphs! I learned that Prince is a small business owner in University City. Also I accumulated further evidence that the News Tribune cannot edit AP stories properly and likes to conveniently take out paragraphs they do not agree with, like a small business owner who pays his employees better to compete with big box stores. Their motto is "Reporting the News We Agree With".

(Another example of their news coverage is that they will print a story about a judge overturning the Health Care Reform law on the front page, while not mentioning at all when a judge upholds the same law. How convenient!)

Now after reading the article on Yahoo! News I knew who Prince is, but who is Parkinson?

So, I went back and searched Google. I failed to find any stories that actually give more details about Parkinson. I will assume he is an employee of Prince, but why cut out crucial information about him, like identifying him as an employee of the record store.

I think this article just highlights the state of the news today: Shoddy and incomplete. How can we be informed citizens if our news outlets will not give us coherent articles? This article show the lack of journalism basics!

I was not even looking for an example of bad reporting. I just wanted to be informed of an issue in my state!

Reflections on Revitalizing the Quaker Message

Yesterday at my monthly meeting's, Columbia Friends Meeting, Meeting for Business, the clerk opened the meeting with queries on outreach from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice. The positive responses to the queries encouraged me to share my thoughts from a workshop I just attended, entitled Revitalizing the Quaker Message (FYI: PDF File and the workshop changed names), in order to start a longer discussion within the meeting about outreach.

The workshop was presented by Brent Bill at Quaker Hill Conference Center in Richmond, Indiana. Last year, Brent wrote a great piece, A Modest Proposal (PDF File), on the topic of revitalizing the Quaker message and the weekend was based on his proposal. On his blog, Brent gave a good wrap up of the session in a series of posts: First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth. Since he gave a great overview, I don't feel like writing my own overview of the whole weekend.

I attended the workshop, because since moving back to Missouri and reconnecting with Illinois Yearly Meeting, I have been invited by a Friend to start exploring the idea with her of promoting outreach within the yearly meeting.

Here are a couple key points from the weekend that I think are important for liberal unprogrammed Friends to consider:

First, Brent mentioned that revitalizing the Quaker message is as much about in-reach as it is about outreach. How can we deepen the experience within the meeting to nurture our existing members? In the last twenty years, Friends General Conference (FGC) has only added 1,000 members, which is about one and a half new member per meeting affiliated with FGC (I wonder if the numbers could be skewed by the recent addition of Intermountain Yearly Meeting to FGC, which has about 1,000 members). When we grow, how do we also keep members already there in the meeting?

An example of a good program to help with in-reach is Quaker Quest where a meeting meet for four weeks to talk about topics such as Quakers and God and Quakers and Peace. Then they will repeat the series but this time invite the public to the talk. This is a great experience for the meeting members to articulate their beliefs to each other.

Another way to retain members is for the meeting to actively nurture spiritual growth within their members. One point from A Modest Proposal is entitled The End of Quaker Pastorate. From the title, it seems like it has nothing to do with unprogrammed meetings, but oh it does. Brent talks about how the profession of Quaker pastors should end and instead pastors be called released ministers. Instead the discussion that followed brought up several questions for me:

How can unprogrammed meetings improve the process nurturing their members and attenders and renew the tradition of recording ministers?

On the flip side, how can meetings improve eldering and spiritual guidance to their members and attenders?

A church, where the members are engaged and feel nurtured, radiates this feeling and visitors can sense that. Vice versa is true too, churches that are struggling with issues between its members give off a negative vibe to its members

Second, someone mentioned the Belief-o-matic quiz at meeting for business today. This quiz has a well documented bias towards Quakers (1). Here is an outreach tool for meeting that is not related to Quakers. When someone receives Quaker as one of their top results, the person will then search for the nearest meeting to them in Google. What will they find when they search:

Does each meeting have an inviting, engaging website that seem alive? The website doesn't need to be fancy or cost a lot.

Does the homepage say anything about welcoming visitors?

Are there pictures, besides the meetinghouse?

Are all the information current and up-to-date?

Do all the links work?

Currently FGC is looking into helping meetings improve their web presence. Also in a meeting there is a good chance of someone who possess web developing talents. Lastly there is Word Press and it is simple to set up a modest website for free.

Third, when newcomers come, how do meetings welcome them before worship start? How do we inform them about meeting for worship beforehand? Brent related a story about going to meeting for worship while visiting New York City and no one greeted him beforehand. To a visitor, who has no prior experience with meeting for worship, worship can seem very different, maybe even intimidating. Without a proper introduction, they could feel uncomfortable leading to a negative first impression. After meeting for worship, how do meetings engage the guest? Talk to them! But don't engage with them because you just want another person to attend meeting, engage with them to find out who they are. People can sense fake hospitality. Martin Kelley has a great idea: Invite them out for lunch! Make them feel welcome.

I have a lot more thoughts on the workshop and the topic of Quaker outreach, but I think this is a good stopping point for this post. These three points are a good place to start a discussion on outreach and I am looking forward to continuing this conversation with my monthly and yearly meetings.

Apologies to Brent if I misrepresented anything he said.

1. "An issue of Newsweek magazine reported that a "disproportionate number" of respondents to the quiz identified themselves as 'liberal Quakers.'" The article notes that the page on the BeliefNet web site devoted to Quakers has become one of Beliefnet's top 50 links!" http://holyordinary.blogspot.com/2010/09/modest-proposal-part-1-for.html