What a lovely front page picture and article it was of a young Anglican couple about to be married using vows that require the woman to say ‘I will submit’ (SMH Sat August 25, 2012). But unless you’ve missed the opinion letters, TV appearances and talk back over the last few days that was just round 1…ding! Within a day or so, the letters of ridicule covered the opinion page, and one, Julia Baird, put on the gloves and took to the other corner with a quarter page opinion piece…ding! Round 2. Next, there was a rush to defend the new marriage vows and correct misconceptions of what is meant by ‘submission’. And so it goes on.
The urge to comment is hard to resist. Some may even say it is essential to speak up. However, newspapers are not primarily about news, or a place for unemotional, considered debate. This is not academia but entertainment.
Don’t get me wrong. Some of those contributing to the ‘spat’ care about the issues. But whatever side you are on, it’s worth remembering that you are the commodity being traded, you are the entertainment. The more spat the better.
I bet no-one watching the gladiators whack each other in the Colosseum cared that much about whether the gladiator lived or died. But we all enjoy seeing a good fight. For a story to be entertaining there needs to be goodies and baddies, a problem that needs resolution…or better still a problem that may never be fully resolved…but can rear its head now and then for a good bit of fisticuffs. It’s a bit like Batman movies, you need a few years between sequels or we get tired. But when it’s on, it runs itself.
So the Sydney Anglicans versus women storyline is out for another turn, another sequel. We can’t be hearing about it all the time or we switch off. Boring. But the Herald needs watchable stories and this is one where they can bank on getting a rise out of Sydney Anglicans. Hence the deliberate alternation between publishing for and against opinions. They’ll keep fuelling the story for as long as readers are entertained by it.
But surely there are people on both sides who truly mean well? Truly believed in their position and felt they were putting right a wrong. Even doing God a favour, honouring Him.
Undoubtedly so.
But they are still entertainment. They are the fuel that feeds the story that entertains the audience, making the paper saleable.
What is gained under the sun by all the opinions?
Vanity?
I guess while the iron is hot and you have an audience, why not strike?! Some people reading the stories and opinions might become better informed, less ignorant and more empathetic to the issues. But this would be a bi-product of what is going on in the foreground.
We can be so earnest. But is it a time for ‘answering a fool according to his (or her) folly’?
Another, entirely possible response could be to say nothing.
Without one of the players, there’s no contest, there’s no story…the papers move on. Everyone moves on and quickly.
One could watch the other side of the debate shadow box to their own exhaustion and to the embarrassment that no-one cares what they think.
Hillsong occasionally gets a good story in the papers. But it’s usually followed up with a negative one. What’s the response from Hillsong Christians? Not much from memory.
Why is that?
Maybe they don’t read the Herald? Maybe the Herald just isn’t mainstream enough for a church as large and popular as Hillsong to care? After all the Herald is a very eastern suburby, inner westy kind of ‘axe grind’. Maybe they know that print media is almost dead anyway.
Do they care how they are represented in the papers?
Maybe Hillsong are a bit more streetwise when it comes to appreciating the newspapers entertainment mandate and the world of Public Relations?
Not only do such ‘debates’ often merely reinforce prejudices and flesh out the papers predetermined story lines, they can be detrimental to your ‘brand’.
By earnestly feeding the debate, you also run the risk of reinforcing the perception that the Sydney Anglican Church is defensive, reactionary and overly concerned with what others think of it.
Should we just be getting on with ministry the best we know how. Are we better off shaping our brand proactively, writing our own story line and getting mileage out of what makes us different.
Maybe Hillsong just likes to get on with doing what they like to be doing.
Maybe they just don’t want to get into a spat.
It might sound ‘off brand’, even irresponsible to some, but Sydney Anglicans could leave the opponent swinging in the ring, punching the air aimlessly, chasing the wind.
