By Janet Mefferd
OneNewsNow.com
January 12, 2017
There is almost nothing more frustrating than when the media get the fundamental essence of a controversial story wrong.
Yet that is exactly what seems to have happened with the widespread, incomplete reporting on the growing flap between conservative Southern Baptists and Dr. Russell Moore, president of that denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
A few weeks ago, a reporter at National Public Radio contacted me to comment on a story about Southern Baptist conservatives’ growing frustration with the head of the ERLC. The story noted that Moore was experiencing a backlash from conservatives in his denomination because of his “anti-Trump comments.”
I had explained to the reporter that, in fact, Moore’s anti-Trump comments were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to why conservatives were upset with Moore. I provided many details, but none of them made it into NPR’s story. And the inadequate “Moore’s only in trouble because he was just too moral and ethical to cave on his principles and get behind Trump” narrative kept spreading and spreading. Read this entry