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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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Essay was Bad; Headline was Irresponsible<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Roy Atwood is president of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow.<br>
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<font size=2>"The god you worship is the god you
deserve."<br>
~~ Joseph Campbell<br>
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