I was one of the men who attended the Promise Keepers Sacred Assembly of Men in Washington last weekend. Throughout this past week, I have looked to the Tribune for coverage of this historic event and was both pleasantly surprised and disappointed.
Your Oct. 3 editorial was very welcome, given the almost hysterical coverage provided by other outlets. The editorial basically said, “Take this event at face value, leave the straw man criticism out, and what can possibly be wrong with a group of men who are pledging themselves to be better husbands and fathers?” It was refreshingly fair and objective– journalistic rarities these days.
Your Page 1 story the next day was, sorry to say, less then fair, its basic message being, “Yeah, they say that this event is not about politics but by the very action of holding it in Washington, the Promise Keepers are being, at least, disingenuous.” What happened to objective reporting of the event, as opposed to laying of red herrings?
Your Oct. 5 story was also disturbing. This assembly was, perhaps, the single largest attended event in Washington, (as stated in your Oct. 3 story, the previous record was LBJ’s inauguration), yet your cover-age was scant (as opposed to that of the Louis Farrakhan Million Man March).
How much of your coverage was about the actual event and the wonderful things that occurred there, as opposed to the number of lines given over to uninformed and agenda-laden negative spin provided by groups whose sole purpose was to accomplish exactly what your paper aided them in doing–deflect from Christ’s message of love, grace, healing and redemptive renewal of men? I know it is not the norm for events in Washington, in the seat of our government, to be straightforward and honest, but isn’t it the job of journalism to report, rather than spin, the news?
Thank you for the honesty of your Oct. 3 editorial. I am disappointed that this dedication to objectivity did not extend through the rest of the weekend.
