Thursday, June 29, 2017

The Media Meets the Biblical Boomerang

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Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Michael Goodwin, wrote the following in his New York Post story titled, "The Media Will Do Anything To Bash Trump---And Now They Are Hurting."

"What started as bias against him has become a cancer that is consuming the best and brightest. In rough biblical justice, media attempts to destroy the president are boomeranging and leaving their reputations in tatters."

The media's attempt to "get Trump" isn't working out so well, but it sure is affirming an old truth.


Goodwin says, "He accuses them of publishing fake news, and they respond with such blind hatred that they end up publishing fake news. That'll show him."

Long before Turner started CNN or Murdock started Fox, and others started ABC, NBC, CBS, and other networks, a man named Paul wrote this news to the Christians and it wasn't from an un-named, anonymous source "...whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap..." (Gal. 6:7).

This would be the "rough biblical justice" Goodwin was talking about.

As a kid I would often buy a boomerang, go out in the field and throw it---but it never came back. I owned several boomerangs.

However, CNN seems to have perfected the art.

Goodwin says, "CNN is suffering an especially bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, even trying to make a virtue of its hostility to the president. In doing so, executives conveniently confuse animus with professional skepticism, and cite growing audiences as proof of their good judgment."

He says CNN sold itself as boring, but trustworthy for years--- now it's boring and untrustworthy.

Indeed.

And he says journalists should be tough and skeptical----but this is not that because there should always be the element of fairness in journalism.

Back in January, CNN published a story based on a now-discredited file that made claims about a connection between then-president-elect Trump and Russia, only to find out that neither Trump nor anyone from his team was anywhere near the foreign country when the alleged meeting took place.

CNN retracted that story---but apparently learned little from the experience.

Last weekend the news network published a story that claimed Trump administration officials were connected with a Russian hedge fund---using "anonymous" sources to verify their claims.

By Saturday--- boom---a retraction. On Monday, 3 journalists were out at CNN.

Curtis Houck of Media Research Center says, "Here's a situation where it bit them again."

Maybe they just made a mistake---everybody makes mistakes.

Sure we do.

But now video footage has been released by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas that shows a senior producer at CNN saying, "Trump is probably right about a 'Russia witch hunt'."

While CNN focuses on ratings, they appear to be throwing anything on the screen to get them.

In the video, John Bonifield, a supervising producer at CNN, talks with O'Keefe (unknowingly) about how they are just using the Trump stories to boost ratings and how directions are coming down from CNN's CEO Jeff Zucker.

The news producer says "it's all just BS"... "we don't really have any giant proof---it's mostly 'BS' right now"--- and there's much more. You can read it and watch the video.

CNN's response? Mostly a shrug. And an attack on O'Keefe.

Goodwin says getting rid of 3 journalists is "hardly a solution to a problem that starts at the top."

The secret recording catches the producer saying that Jeff Zucker relentlessly pushes stories on Trump's ties to Russia even though the producer says, the subject is mostly "BS'."

Goodwin says it is no secret that leading officials, including both Democrats and Republicans, have called these attempts an "act of war."

Yet, he says, "It is a strange war---one that is only important to the extent Trump can be linked to it. Otherwise, who cares?"

Goodwin, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, says this is "really, really embarrassing to those of us who love journalism."

Even among those who did not vote for Trump, there is a growing disgust toward the press---particularly CNN.

It's dangerous for those throwing the boomerangs---or sowing to the wind.

As a kid, my boomerang never came back because of my lack of skill in throwing it.

But there is an absolute principle involved in this CNN narrative. And it's bigger than the president or anyone else.

Job said, "As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same" (4:8).

Hosea (8:7) defined the principle of "biblical justice" in these terms: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it shall have no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up."

Be careful when you throw the boomerang---or sow the seed.

Be Informed. Be Blessed.