No-Spin Zones No More




 We all have our biases. Let's admit that off the top. Christian Renewal magazine, for instance, is influenced and guided by a Reformed, Christian worldview. We don’t hide that fact. It’s on our front page. 

So what we write is guided by certain principles regarding truth and false  hood, about a world that is sin stained, and about a God who is active in creation and redemption, with fulfillment and fruition to come.

Secular newspapers and other media for the most part are directed by their own ideologies and beliefs, and those beliefs shape content. When I was in college studying journalism, there was still a sense that a newspaper’s purpose was to be objective, to get the facts and report them in a balanced and fair way.

Today, journalism is very much advocacy based. 

There is an editorial direction that is clearly promoted by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, for examples, that is evident to those who read these daily chronicles. And we generally lean toward newspapers and magazines that proximate our own views.

The internet has changed news coverage in a radical way, because of its immediacy and access. 

That can be good to a point; but there is also much danger in that the news that is disseminated can be manipulated and spun in such a way that the truth no longer matters. What matters are the ideas being circulated. 

So, as always, the theme when reading anything is: discernment.   

John Van Dyk, Editor
Christian Renewal Magazine 

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