Don Hinkle made some serious errors in his recent column entitled, "Lacy's silly excuse; a dissertation causes a stir." He attacks Missouri Baptist University President Alton Lacey for a recent statement in the New York Times. However, Hinkle messes up the quotation—twice! And he spells Lacey's name incorrectly (as "Lacy")!
He quotes Lacey as saying "We want to cut our ties. ... We just don’t want the state conventions politicizing our boards." But the actual quotation in the New York Times article is: "We don’t want to cut our ties. ... We just don’t want the conventions politicizing our boards."
Leaving out the "don't" completely changes the statement. Additionally, Hinkle adds the word “state” but makes it appear as if Lacey said it. Such errors are more than silly, they should be serious blows to the credibility of Hinkle. These could be just sloppy mistakes, but seem to represent a larger pattern of misrepresenting the truth, such as in his last column when he claimed Barak Obama used the phrase “open-minded” instead of what Obama really said—“fair-minded" (see previous post here). Christians should set a higher standard (see previous articles on Hinkle’s writings: Truthiness and Inconceivable!).
While he may claim the most recent errors are minor typos and his major point still stands, the wise Albert Einstein would suggest otherwise. He stated, "Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." Christians, of all people, should be careful with the truth in small and important maters!
He quotes Lacey as saying "We want to cut our ties. ... We just don’t want the state conventions politicizing our boards." But the actual quotation in the New York Times article is: "We don’t want to cut our ties. ... We just don’t want the conventions politicizing our boards."
Leaving out the "don't" completely changes the statement. Additionally, Hinkle adds the word “state” but makes it appear as if Lacey said it. Such errors are more than silly, they should be serious blows to the credibility of Hinkle. These could be just sloppy mistakes, but seem to represent a larger pattern of misrepresenting the truth, such as in his last column when he claimed Barak Obama used the phrase “open-minded” instead of what Obama really said—“fair-minded" (see previous post here). Christians should set a higher standard (see previous articles on Hinkle’s writings: Truthiness and Inconceivable!).
While he may claim the most recent errors are minor typos and his major point still stands, the wise Albert Einstein would suggest otherwise. He stated, "Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." Christians, of all people, should be careful with the truth in small and important maters!
FYI - I personally know two individuals who wrote to Hinkle about his "mistakes". At first he did not want to acknowledge that there had been a mistake. Then he said that he would make the correction in the next issue. We aren't holding our breath for that to happen!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I knew he had been contacted and there should be a correction coming (but I too would not hold my breath). A good journalist would have immediately corrected the online version, but it still has the errors.
ReplyDeleteOh, he did post a correction... only a few weeks later, buried at the tail of another editorial. And of course, he only cited one error, discarded the other two, and once again misspelled Lacey's name.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct. I noted his incorrect correction in a later post found here. It is pretty sad. Thanks for commenting!
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