Thursday, February 7, 2008

The perils of media descriptions

Compare these two paragraphs, both of which refer to publications I write for:
The Web site of Christianity Today, the leading evangelical journal, declared Wednesday that the election results “exposed divides between evangelical voters and their spokesmen.”

A California Jewish newspaper dubbed it the “Jewish primary,” but the Super Tuesday contest in California might be more accurately called the Hispanic primary.
Notice the different treatments of Christianity Today and The Jewish Journal. One is called the leading evangelical journal (it is) while the other is simply "a" California Jewish newspaper (it is, in fact, the largest outside of New York). Now, can you guess which reporter works for The Jewish Week and which for the New York Times?

No comments: