Repeating Lies

I noted last week that The Pathway had an inaccurate story about Windermere Baptist Conference Center, which has been pointed out by Windermere and the Word&Way. Unfortunately, the Baptist Press compounded the problem today by running a piece that is an edited version of The Pathway's story. Although the Baptist Press piece had a different headline, it still made the other two problems that had been noted about the story. The Baptist Press ran The Pathway's one-sided account, even though The Pathway never checked with anyone at Windermere or the development company to verify the facts. Additionally, the Baptist Press story keeps Michael Whitehead's wrong-headed comment about trees being cut down. Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Baptist Press has run inaccurate stories from The Pathway and thus expanding the reach of the problems. What makes this example even worse is that the Baptist Press was informed of the problems with The Pathway story before they ran it. Such deliberate one-sidedness and passing on of inaccurate statements is unjournalistic and un-Christlike.


UPDATE [10-31-07]: The problem that the Baptist Press created by running The Pathway's inaccurate claims has increased as other news sources have now run the Baptist Press story. Townhall.com ran the piece, as did the Baptist Messenger (of Oklahoma) and a few bloggers. Even KY3, a TV news station in Springfield, Missouri, posted a couple of paragraphs and then linked to the story. The KY3 story made it sound even worse as if Windermere Baptist Conference Center was being foreclosed. To their credit, they removed the story after I contacted them about the problems. All of this reminds me of what Mark Twain once said: "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." It is a shame that the Baptist Press helped propel this inaccurate story.