Article VI Blog

We've commented extensively here and here below on the Boston Globe stories of October 19 and October 22. Following up on those posts, I e-mailed to the stories' writers, Scott Helman and Michael Levenson:

Dear Messrs. Helman and Levenson:

I co-author a blog called Article VI, the goal of which is to explore the intersection of religion and politics in the 2008 presidential election. Mitt Romney's Mormonism is, of course, a big part of that discussion. I read with great interest your recent stories on the alleged involvement of Romney's church in his campaign efforts. I posted about today's story, which focused on the Don Stirling e-mails, here.

I also posted about the original story here.

That last post got more traffic than anything that has ever appeared on our blog site, by a factor of ten.

I found serious flaws in your first story; as for today's follow-up story, I merely offered a Mormon perspective on the peculiar cultural issues at work. You are warmly invited to comment about either of our posts; we will publish anything you wish to say.

Regards,

Lowell Brown

This morning I received this response:

lowell,

thanks for writing and alerting us to these. i'm sorry you saw flaws in the story. our intent wasn't to target mormonism, or discredit romney, but merely to report what we know about discussions between the two camps and why they have to be careful. regards, scott
——————-
Scott Helman
Political Reporter
The Boston Globe

Update: I then replied with this:

Thanks, Scott. My big problem with your story was that you seemed to
connect dots that were not necessarily there. (That's prety much what I
said on the blog in response to your e-mail.) So take that feedback for
what it's worth.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

Best,

Lowell Brown

I thought that was the end, but Helman rejoined:

lowell,

you're certainly entitled to see it that way. but again, our interest was
in laying out what we know without drawing any vast conclusions. some
people will see a clear effort to help romney; others won't.

best,

scott

I appreciate Mr. Helman's responses. It's interesting to me that although he doesn't take time to address any of the flaws we saw in the story (and in all fairness I did not expect him to do that) he falls back on his intent in writing the story. It's great that he and Mr. Levenson wanted to report what they "know about discussions between the two camps," but I think they did more than that– they really did attempt to connect dots that didn't exist.

In Helman's second response, he says he and his writing partner were not interested in "drawing any vast conclusions." But it seems to me that drawing conclusions– vast or not– is exactly what they did. Right in their lede they concluded, for example, that "Romney's political team has quietly consulted with leaders of the Mormon Church to map out plans for a nationwide network of Mormon supporters to help Romney capture the presidency in 2008." Taking that paragraph at face value, it seems like a pretty vast conclusion to me.

Helman and Levenson also concluded– or at least assumed– that Don Stirling's promotional e-mails accurately described the nature of the meetings that took place. As a lawyer, I know that when a witness tells a story that also happens to serve his best interests (like Stirling's e-mails), I should be skeptical. I thought newspaper reporters were supposed to think the same way.

If the reporters' intent was also to report "why [the Romney camp and the Church] have to be careful," one wonders if there's any reason to believe either party needed to be reminded of that. The more likely result is that Romney's team and Church officials will now be paranoid about even acknowledging one another when passing on the street, for fear of reading an extensive and accusatory report on that encounter in the Globe.

John adds: Reporters never intend to do anything, save report, it is always a question of what they report, when they report it, adjectival choice, placement, and column inches. The Globe has had little kind to say about Romney since he was elected Governor. This is just more of same.

The CJCLDS does have a problem though. Evangelicals, as opposed to more mainline creedal churches, are organized in a fashion that makes political action much easier. The CJCLDS is organized more along Catholic lines than even traditional protestantism, making any contact between church and campaign very problematic under current law. Thus, I think the paranoia that Lowell suggests above is probably a correct response.

There have been mistakes made, minor and non-consequential, though they may be. The problem with the Globe is not that they reported the mistakes, but that they featured them on page one like they had uncovered a murder or some such.

I think it noteworthy that these stories have not been picked up by other papers or news outlets - a sure indication that there is little of consequence there.

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