{"id":115156,"date":"2022-09-15T12:15:22","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T16:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=115156"},"modified":"2022-09-15T15:48:57","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T19:48:57","slug":"current-marvin-olasky-a-wrinkle-in-journalism-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=115156","title":{"rendered":"(Current) Marvin Olasky&#8211;A Wrinkle in Journalism History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I began editing\u00a0<em>World<\/em>\u00a0thirty years ago I was proposing policies regarding poverty-fighting and related issues that became known as \u201ccompassionate conservatism.\u201d The magazine reflected that viewpoint. Today, \u201cnational conservatism\u201d or \u201cChristian nationalism\u201d has little room for compassion. As\u00a0<em>World<\/em>\u00a0resisted paranoid lines regarding vaccines, masks, and church closings\u2014<em>all part of a big government plot<\/em>\u2014our resistance became part of a larger conspiracy theory:\u00a0<em>World had gone woke.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>American journalism history has valuable lessons on how to deal with conspiracy mongers. In 1955 wealthy William F. Buckley, Jr. started a magazine,\u00a0<em>National Review<\/em>, that invigorated a conservative movement in disarray. Within a few years Buckley as editor had to fight off the John Birch Society, which asserted\u2014among other oddities\u2014that President Dwight Eisenhower was a Communist. Buckley said Birch founder and head Robert Welch inferred \u201csubjective intention from objective consequences\u201d: Because bad things had happened, U.S. policy makers must have intended them to happen.<\/p>\n<p>John Birchers scrutinized book-buying decisions by local librarians and demanded that some books be removed. When\u00a0<em>National Review<\/em>\u00a0opposed the Birch campaign to impeach Earl Warren, the Supreme Court\u2019s chief justice, many subscribers complained. When one donor said he had supported\u00a0<em>National Review<\/em>\u00a0financially and wanted it to support his concerns, Buckley said the magazine was \u201cnot for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buckley owned the magazine and maintained his emphasis on independence even when the business side, led by publisher Bill Rusher, worried about reader and revenue loss. Rusher said a \u201csubstantial fraction\u201d of readers \u201cbled away\u201d during 1962 and 1963. A direct mail campaign flopped as many on the mailing lists sided with the Birchers.<\/p>\n<p>Buckley stuck with his principles and wrote to Barry Goldwater, \u201cIt is essential that we effect a clean break\u201d with the Birch Society.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/currentpub.com\/2022\/09\/14\/long-form-a-wrinkle-in-journalism-history\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">LONG FORM: A Wrinkle in Journalism History <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/B4aSuubIg0\">https:\/\/t.co\/B4aSuubIg0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Marvin Olasky (@MarvinOlasky) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarvinOlasky\/status\/1570029431326134277?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 14, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I began editing\u00a0World\u00a0thirty years ago I was proposing policies regarding poverty-fighting and related issues that became known as \u201ccompassionate conservatism.\u201d The magazine reflected that viewpoint. Today, \u201cnational conservatism\u201d or \u201cChristian nationalism\u201d has little room for compassion. As\u00a0World\u00a0resisted paranoid lines<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=115156\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168,419,89,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-evangelicals","category-media","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115156"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115162,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115156\/revisions\/115162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}