In a 2010 blog entry titled “Emotion in Reporting: Use and Abuse,” journalist and media ethicist Stephen Ward described several news reports on the Haitian earthquake. He raised concerns about self-aggrandizing features showing virtuous journalists finding missing children or caring for injured infants in the street. Ward suggests that these reports cross the line from being “a true expression of compassion” to “self-promotion,” noting, “In a media era when networks and other outlets are struggling to survive, we should be wary of journalists using emotion-based reporting to secure audiences.” More than a decade later, Ward’s insights, if anything, seem to have underestimated the willingness of media outlets to use emotion.
In the wake of floods in Texas, Camp Mystic has become more than a tragedy—it has become political leverage. Some criticize Trump’s budget cuts. Others advance theories about weather manipulation. Various politicians, media outlets, and content creators have not let a general lack of evidence stop them from promoting claims about the cause of the floods. The people negatively impacted by the floods—victims and their families—can’t be forgotten because their stories are necessary to the political posturing of the moment. It isn’t that expressions of sympathy or calls for aid are insincere, but that they are muddled together with agendas that may or may not have anything to do with the Texas floods.
So, would it be better to say nothing? Not at all. It is appropriate for media outlets to cover the floods. Being aware of tragedy is crucial if we are to support those in need of help. Well-informed reporting can serve to redirect resources and correct problems arising from corruption, incompetence, or neglect. Still, journalism—including Christian journalism—can also reinforce problems as easily as it can correct them. The sort of journalism we practice matters.
We don’t need stories seeking to encourage outrage alongside the all-too-real reasons for lament, nor do we need the inane reports about what someone said on social media. For instance, consider the news reports concerning Kandiss Taylor’s post on X, advancing the claim that the Texas floods were “fake” because they were caused by weather modification. Is this story relevant to voters in Georgia? Perhaps. It seems wise to understand how a given candidate thinks about and communicates on various issues. Is it relevant to the rest of us? Probably not. Yet, Taylor’s uncareful, under-informed comments have given politicians and media outlets an opportunity to highlight the lunacy of political rivals. As many of the headlines suggest, Taylor is not just a candidate, but a “MAGA Candidate.”
In using this example, I am not attempting some veiled defense of weather manipulation advocates or the MAGA movement as a whole. I have not done the due diligence to comment intelligently on the claims one way or another, nor do I own a MAGA hat. Taylor’s comments offer a convenient multi-layered example of the sort of media we could do without. First, Taylor, as far as I’ve seen, has not offered any evidence to support the claim that weather manipulation caused the Texas floods. Here, X post didn’t come with footnotes. Given that she is running for office, it is hard not to think that her post was politically motivated. Second, the multiple stories about her post have turned it into political fodder with an anti-MAGA bent. Taylor makes a claim that appears to be ahead of the evidence, while those who oppose her use the comment to diminish a political opponent.
Reading through the various accounts of the post and the responses, it is easy to think that the fate of the current flood victims (and any other forthcoming tragedies) depends on the winner of the political battles between Republicans and Democrats. Certain politicians and media outlets are using the Texas floods to maximize the supposed relevance of politics in all areas of life. The Texas floods are very real, but much of the discourse around them is designed to convince us that, for instance, the comments of an aspiring politician are relevant. The discourse is what Harry Frankfurt characterizes as phony—though he uses a different word—and the phony, as cognitive psychologist John Vervaeke notes, “does not appeal to any measure of truth outside the needs of the moment. Instead, he tries to capture your attention with the catchiness of his claim and how much it provokes something inside of you.”
Christian reporting needs to be different, and, thankfully, much of the coverage I’ve seen from Christian news outlets has been different. Christian reporting shouldn’t be captured by politics, but it can certainly address political matters. Instead, Christian reporting should take on a theological orientation. Such an orientation is characterized by a rightly ordered love for God that governs and informs love for neighbor, family, country, and everything else. It presents stories so that the Triune God’s infinite relevance is highlighted over any other actor or factor.
Christian reporting isn’t a dry repetition of facts but a gesturing toward meaning—toward the governing dynamics of life. For instance, the Texas floods remind us that collective lament over the brokenness of the world is not only appropriate but also a means of breaking into praise to God. The floods underscore our limitations and vulnerabilities.
I am not suggesting that every Christian news story turn into an altar call. Instead, Christian coverage of the world’s events must point to and glorify the Triune God. It must reflect the reality of a world in which God is active and present even within tragedy. To put it differently, Christian reporting doesn’t use the truth to capture the attention of others but to reorient it toward the Triune God. Our goal is not to avoid hard conversations or to give people a pass on bad acts, but to immerse whatever events happen in the world within a theological matrix reflecting our conviction that the world will not be fixed through human effort but through the salvific, redeeming, restorative work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/RONALDO SCHEMIDT/Contributor
.webp)
