[Vision2020] Atwood column in Today's Statesman

[Nick Gier]

Here is Roy Atwood's response to my column which I entitled "The Cultural 
Wars Come to Moscow."  In a letter to the Statesman I objected strongly to 
their title and reiterated the fact that I have never called Wilson a 
racist or a neo-Nazi.  Once again, I have appended my Statesman column below.

My challenge to Atwood is to prove where the column was false.  I've 
already made the minor correction about Wilson holding a franchise on 
Classical Christian Schools.  Atwood needs to tell us where the major 
errors lie.

Essay was Bad; Headline was Irresponsible

The Idaho Statesman was grossly irresponsible and sensationalistic when it 
published a "Reader's Opinion" by Nick Gier recently with a defamatory 
headline of its own making, falsely declaring several individuals and 
church-related ministries in Moscow, including my own institution, New 
Saint Andrews College, to be "Neo-Nazi Christians." Not only was Gier's 
letter a defamatory screed filled with known falsehoods and false 
accusations, but The Statesman editors acted far more irresponsibly.

The Statesman exercised reckless disregard for the truth by amplifying 
Gier's false claims of fact and unfounded accusations into a full-blown 
defamation against my college and several individuals and Moscow 
organizations that despise and oppose Nazism in all its forms, past and 
present. To make matters worse, The Statesman has failed to take full 
responsibility for its false and defamatory headline by neither retracting 
nor correcting the false claims of fact in the headline in a timely manner. 
The paper falsely called us Nazis and then merely offered to let those of 
us defamed respond with a different "opinion." But claims of fact are not 
opinions. Labeling any individual, group or organization in Idaho as 
"neo-Nazi" without checking the facts and exercising due journalistic 
diligence is not just professionally irresponsible, but a grave injustice 
to the individuals and organizations so labeled. It is an unconscionable 
act for a newspaper in the capital city of our unjustly maligned state.

For the past year or more, Gier and a group of political extremists in 
Moscow have been waging a malicious campaign to damage Christ Church and 
its related ministries because of its biblical teachings on various social 
issues. Although many of these extremists are associated with the 
University of Idaho, they have abandoned rational argumentation and civil 
discourse, and stooped to ad hominem attacks and organized smear campaigns. 
Newspapers closer to the scene, notably the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and 
Lewiston Tribune, have both editorially described these extremists' actions 
as "harassment" and politically motivated "badgering." With little or no 
credibility left in Moscow and Lewiston, Gier has now tried to do damage to 
our reputations elsewhere in the state. The Statesman should have known 
better than to become an unwitting participant in this charade.

As the state's largest circulation paper, The Statesman should have acted 
responsibly and checked the facts before printing Gier's obviously 
malicious and bogus claims or writing such a defamatory and inflammatory 
headline. Operating in a state whose reputation has been stained globally 
by neo-Nazis based at Hayden Lake, The Statesman should have exercised 
appropriate care and reasonable caution before labeling anyone or any group 
in our state "neo-Nazis." Gier's article was irresponsible, false and 
harmful, but what you would expect from a leftist philosophy professor who 
is caught in the grip of an extremist ideology and who has trouble 
following basic logic and ethics. The Statesman's headline, however, was 
grossly irresponsible and defamatory and without excuse. The Statesman's 
failure to admit its error and to apologize in a timely way for running 
Gier's distortions and its own defamatory headline reveals a profound 
failure in journalistic integrity and credibility.

Roy Atwood is president of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow.

"The god you worship is the god you deserve."
~~ Joseph Campbell
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