Myths were once the inspiration for valiant acts, the explanations for the creation of the universe, the way people mapped out the virtues of their nations.
Originally stories spun out by the story-tellers as the clans gathered around fires, myths have gone from oral history to a sort of popular culture reference to mistaken beliefs.
And when that transition occurred, the beauty whipped up around the campfires to explain a tribe’s location or the nature of a god or the meaning of a virtue was swept up like so much flotsam and jetsam to be replaced by such concepts as urban legends, medical myths, science fiction, sports legends, parenting nonsense and dietary canards.
Stop it. That kind of use of the word myths brings in recitations of the mundane, the boring and, worse, the outright lie instead of invoking the horrific bearing of a Medea or the heroic feats of a Hercules.
The fact that the Deseret News has chosen to promote itself with a series of ads which it calls “dispelling myths” is preposterous. The first in the series — one that ran several weeks ago — featured the idea that it was a myth to believe that the general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reviewed the content of the paper. Then came a second one that said it was a myth to believe that all the staff members of the paper were Mormons. (Actually, the ad seems kind of convoluted, as the headline reads: “Our stringent hiring practices for journalists exclude everyone except — Mormons, Jack-Mormons, Catholics, Presbyterians, Muslims, Agnostics, ‘I’ll never tells’ ‘none of your businesses’ and others.”)
The ad features photographs of various unidentified staff members who apparently follow some belief system that’s not Mormon.
What these ads are trying to kill might be specious beliefs, but they are not myths. Myths keep us up at night or inspire us to emulate heros, but they rarely have much to do with the gathering and dissemination of the news. If someone at this paper asked me to appear in such an ad for The Salt Lake Tribune, it would be the end of our association.
Reporters e-mail
Some readers are distressed that they have sent e-mails to reporters at The Tribune (based on the e-mail addresses that run at the bottom of some stories) and have not gotten a response.
Within the last few years, reporters at newspapers across the country have started to put their e-mail addresses at the top or bottom of stories they write. Some newspapers claim it is so readers can easily contact those covering the news. Reporters use the device to get tips on news stories from readers.
At The Tribune, it’s probably a mixture of both, although some reporters say they also get electronic mail from all manner of nut cases who believe their predictions, ideas and opinions are worthy of note.
Common courtesy would dictate that reporters at least let readers know they have received their e-mail. If it’s frustrating for reporters to deal with news sources who refuse to return phone calls or respond to e-mail, then they should realize readers feel the same way.
News sources?
Several readers called to ask why The Tribune would run a news brief taken from the Weekly World News under a serious item by Religion News Service on Pope John Paul II approving the beatification (a step prior to naming her a saint) of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
The Weekly World item in question reported on some Swiss scientists who claimed to have discovered the “eject button” inside the human head that tosses the soul from the body when a person dies. The scientists further claim that this “eject button” also triggers out of body experiences.
One reader wanted to know why we would run an item on such a strange topic in Saturday’s Body and Soul section. Tribune Managing Editor Tim Fitzpatrick says it shows “we have a sense of humor.” Maybe. But it also shows an alarming lack of sophistication on the part of Tribune staff about the hierarchy of supermarket tabloids.
The top of the heap would be the National Enquirer, which was quoted by as venerable a newspaper as The New York Times during the height of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. The bottom of the heap — but perhaps most amusing of the tabs — is The Weekly World News. This is the tabloid that periodically prints a cover featuring a space ship, a space alien and a world figure.
So far the cover has featured such illuminati as Ross Perot, Bill Clinton, President Kennedy in a wheelchair, several leaders of the former USSR and Mother Teresa and the space alien and the UFO. (Note, please, it is always the same space alien and the same ship.)
Simply, the staff at The Weekly World News has the distinct pleasure of ignoring any factual basis for stories it prepares. The writers are making them up — and making readers victims of the staffs’ more than vivid imaginations.
Certainly, any mention of materials from Weekly World News in The Tribune should be accompanied by clear disclaimers. And this is especially true if said items are run in a column of news briefs from legitimate sources. Oh, and if you want to know when the world will end, I believe the Weekly World News did a long piece on that subject right after the last space alien cover.
