COMMENTARY THE HIGH POINT ENTERPRISE SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2010 www.hpe.com
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Who will report the news if media trend continues?
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he news business is in free fall. Ad revenues for newspapers are dropping precipitously and papers are responding by cutting staff, eliminating circulation coverage and reducing news content. It is no wonder subscriptions, especially among those under 40, are dwindling. The future for newspapers is so threatened we are told some papers are considering becoming nonprofits to receive charitable grants and there is even a move for legislation to provide subsidies to the industry, a horrible idea for many reasons. TV broadcasters, while not experiencing quite so severe a drop in ad revenues, are facing threats just as serious. The Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory body for broadcasters, is proposing that TV stations give up their
broadcasting channels so airwaves can be used for Wi-Fi, Wi-Max and other broadband Internet services. Advocates say MY SPIN the demand is growing so rapTom idly that the TV Campbell frequencies are ■■■ needed to serve the public. These are public airwaves, after all, and broadcasters are only licensed to use them. Only 12.6 percent of the populous actually receives over-theair signals from TV stations. In North Carolina this number is as low as 10 percent. Viewers now watch from cable or satellite providers so proponents say there is no longer the need for broadcasters to occupy these frequencies.
Such a move would serve to guarantee profits for cable and satellite operators, making them the ultimate gatekeepers for the entertainment and news that comes into your home. It will hasten the demise of network offerings on local TV outlets. CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox will tell their local affiliates they no longer need them to deliver their programming, creating huge holes in weekly schedules. The compensation these networks pay stations will automatically cease, programming costs will escalate and TV stations will find themselves at the mercy of a cable industry that can control what tier they are on and how much they charge to transmit the signals of local stations. In addition to another government-created monopoly, this is just bad policy for
dissemination of news to the public. If both TV and newspapers have their legs cut out from under them and are no longer profitable, we must ask who will pay for and who will control news reporting. We count on the media to be the check and balance to government, big business and other powerful entities. Would we have changed direction on Vietnam, Watergate, the financial crisis and other cover-ups if the national media had not reported them? In North Carolina would we have known about public corruption, weather threats, health care and other crises if our newspapers and TV stations failed to tell us? The news media are far from perfect, but they serve as the public conscience, our watchdogs. Some say the public will turn to Facebook, Twitter,
blogs and other Internet providers for news, but none have the same credibility, standards or independence as those in our news media. Besides, no reputable news organization exclusively using these media is profitable. We don’t know how all this will shake out, but we do know it is essential to have a strong, vibrant, self supported fourth estate, without government subsidies or undue regulations. The First Amendment of our Constitution speaks to the importance of free speech, but current situations beg the question who will report the news? TOM CAMPBELL is former assistant N. C. state treasurer and is creator/host of NC SPIN, a weekly statewide television discussion of N.C. issues airing Sundays at 6:30 a.m. on WFMY-TV. Contact him at www.ncspin.com.
The Founders Just how Christian did the Founding Fathers want the US to be? BY GARY SCOTT SMITH
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ne of today’s most contentious culture wars is over the religious commitments of our nation’s founders. Were most of them orthodox Christians, deists, or agnostics? Scholarly books, college classes, radio talk shows, and blogs all debate this issue, and the Texas Board of Education recently joined the fray. Because of Texas’ large number of students, its huge educational fund, and its statewide curriculum guidelines, this board strongly influences what textbooks are published in the United States. Earlier this year the board reviewed the state’s social studies curriculum, and its conservative Christian members injected more analysis of religion into the guidelines, including assessment of whether the United States was founded as a Christian nation and how Christian were the founders. This issue is so heated that it was the subject of an extensive article in a recent New York Times Magazine, titled, “How Christian Were the Founders?” Conservative Christian authors such as David Barton, Peter Marshall Jr., and Tim LaHaye contend that most of the founders were devout Christians who sought to establish a Christian nation. Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore in “The Godless Constitution” and Brooke Allen in “Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers” counter that very few founders were orthodox Christians. They and others often generalize from famous founders, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine, to argue that most founders were deists who wanted strict separation of church and state. The truth lies between these two positions. Almost every major founder belonged to a Christian congregation, although a sizable number of them were not committed Christians whose faith strongly influenced their political philosophy and actions. Two recent books edited by Daniel Dreisbach, Jeffry Morrison, and Mark David Hall – “The Founders on God and Government” and “The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life” – carefully explained the religious backgrounds, convictions, and contri-
butions of numerous founders. They show that many who played leading roles in the nation’s Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress, and the devising and ratification of the Constitution were devout Christians, as evident in their church attendance, commitment to prayer and Bible reading, belief in God’s direction of earthly affairs, and conduct. Among others, these books discuss John Witherspoon, James Wilson, Samuel Adams, George Mason, Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Benjamin Rush, and Roger Sherman. A third book, which is currently being written, will explain how the faith of Congregationalist John Hancock, Quaker John Dickinson, Presbyterian Elias Boudinot, and Episcopalian Charles Pinckney, and others helped shape their political views, policies, and practice. Abigail Adams and Catholics Charles Carroll, Daniel Carroll,
and John Carroll also were dedicated Christians. Moreover, Jay, Boudinot, Pinckney, and numerous other founders served as officers of the American Bible Society. Even many of those often labeled as deists – Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Alexander Hamilton – do not fit the standard definition of deism, which asserts that after creating the world, God has had no more involvement with it. Deism views God as a transcendent first cause who is not immanent, triune, fully personal, or sovereign over human affairs. All of these founders, however, repeatedly discussed God’s providence and frequently affirmed the value of prayer. Their conviction that God intervened in human affairs and directed history has led some scholars to call these founders “warm” or “enlightened” deists, but these terms seem like oxymorons. A better label for their
position is theistic rationalism. As professor Gregg Frazer explains, this hybrid belief system combines elements of “natural religion, Protestant Christianity, and rationalism – with rationalism as the controlling element.” Those espousing this perspective believed in a powerful, benevolent Creator who established the laws by which the universe operates. They also believed that God answered prayer, that people best served Him by living a moral life, and that individuals would be rewarded or punished in the afterlife based on their earthly deeds. Only a few founders, most notably Thomas Paine and Ethan Allan, can properly be called deists. Despite their theological differences, virtually all the founders maintained that morality depended on religion (which for them meant Christianity). They were convinced that their new republic could succeed only if its citizens were virtuous. For both ideological and pragmatic reasons, the founders opposed establishing one denomination as a national church. However, they provided public support of Christianity through various means, including establishing Christian denominations at the state level, passing state laws restricting public office holding to Christians and punishing blasphemy, issuing proclamations of thanksgiving to God and calls for fasting, using federal money to finance missions to Indians and permitting Christian congregations to use governmental facilities, both at the state and federal level, for their worship services. While we must be careful not to overstate the role of religion in the founding of our nation and the Christian convictions of the founders in textbooks or public discourse, the tendency in many scholarly circles has been to ignore or discount these matters. The battle over how Christian the founders were is likely to continue in Texas and across the country. Fortunately, meticulous scholarship is providing a much more accurate picture of the founders’ religious commitments. GARY SCOTT SMITH, Ph.D., chairs the history department at Grove City (Pa.) College and is author of “Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush.” He is also a fellow for faith and the presidency with The Center for Vision & Values.
Tea Party fears aren’t based on race of president BY CLAIRE BATES
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eonard Pitts recently wrote an article on a commentary by Keith Olbermann about Tea Party participants and the part the race of President Obama plays in their protest. Olbermann’s contention was that it was all about race. Pitts pointed out that race was part of the equation but that it was deeper than that and people were scared because we are witnessing a change in the power structure of the country. This may be true, but I do not think it is why most people are scared.
No doubt, there are some “tea partiers” who are motivated by race, some partially and sadly, some completely. However, these are on the fringe of the movement. Pitts is right, people are scared because they see their country changing. However, he is wrong about the reason. It is not about power between the races, those tides have been turning since the Civil Rights Movement began; the work is not done. We have a long way to go but it is underway. What worries most people is the realization that our two social contracts – one that says if you work hard and are smart
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with your money, you can keep the rewards of your labor and the second that says we will take care of those who can’t take care of themselves – are on a collision course. Our situation is unsustainable. It is a problem with democracy. In time, people (and corporations) realize they can vote themselves large amounts of money from the treasury. Eventually, taxes will become unbearable or services will have to be cut. When we reach this point,
there will be economic and civil uncertainty. People will be scared. What happens at this point? Our current economic crisis taught us that we quickly give up freedoms for security. People know that once those freedoms are gone, they will most likely be gone forever. As Pitts points out, “no one ever volunteers to return to the rear of the bus.” This is especially true of governments. This is the power shift that is troubling to many. Of course, this is something that should have been realized before now. Many administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have contributed
to our debt and deficits, the former Bush administration being a major offender and the current administration following suit. However, I am not sure it matters who is in charge. This problem is inherent in a democracy. The founders of our country knew this and worked hard to put checks and balances in place to keep a democracy on track. They understood from the beginning the tight rope on which a democracy teeters. I hope that future generations do not have to learn this lesson the hard way. CLAIRE BATTS lives in High Point.