The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 5, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 2, 1995 Page: 3 of 24
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thu f ri
I
MEMBER 1995
TEXAS PRESS ASSOCIATION
/
/
Balance tool to use,
not god to worship
opinion
page
Reprinted From The San Antonio Express News
by Joe Patrick Bean
Thursday, February 9
TRI C Club, 2:00 p.m., Gem City
Community Building
VFW, 7:30 p.m., 316 N. 3rd
Alcoholics Anonymous, Court-
house Basement, 6 p.m.
CoDa, Courthouse Basement, 7
p.m.
Wednesday, February 8
Sagebrush Painters, Fire Hall,
10 a.m.
Driver’s License Exam, 9-12, 1-
4, Courthouse Basement
Panhandle Area Transit, 10-3.
Contact County Judge for details
Chamber of Commerce Board
Meeting, 12:00 noon, Chamber
office
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
Altar Society, 7:30 p.m., Parish
Hall
Sacred Heart Catholic CYO,
8:00 p.m., Timothy House
Tuesday, February 7
Town & Country Extension Club,
9:30 a m., First Methodist
Church
UIL Cross X Debate Tourna-
ment, Canadian High School
Canadian Rotary Club, WCTU,
12 noon.
CHS Varsity & JV Basketball vs
Panhandle, Begins 5:00 p.m.
GED Class, Trails Alternative
School, 5th & Main, 6:30-9:30
p.m.
Woman’s Club, 7:30 p.m., First
State Bank
I
frey, the Georgia college professor recently hired
— then abruptly fired — by Speaker Newt
Gingrich as historian of the U.S. House of Rep-
resentatives.
In 1986, Jeffrey served as a consultant to the
U.S. Department of Eduction. One of her tasks
was to evaluate a junior high history unit on the
Holocaust.
“The program gives no evidence of balance or
objectivity,” she wrote in a December 1986 letter
to the department. “The Nazi point of view, how-
ever unpopular, is still a point of view and it is
not presented; nor is that of the Ku Klux Klan ."
Jeffrey implied a moral equivalency between
the European Jews who suffered near-genocide
and the Nazis who inflicted it on them. That is a
glaringly false balance.
This is the same kind of false balance Express-
News editors and reporters properly rejected
when planning the paper’s coverage of the King
holiday events.
Just as there is no moral equivalency between
King and those who advocate using violence to
implement an American version of ethnic cleans-
ing, there is no moral equivalency between
Holocaust victims and their murderers.
The Rev. Claude Black, a veteran San Antonio
pastor and civil rights activist, reminded wor-
shippers at the King interfaith service of the
need for historical perspective.
We today cannot begin to understand the civil
rights movement and King’s contributions to it
without knowing something about conditions in
the South in the 1950s and '60s, Black explained
He is right. Likewise, we today cannot under-
stand the Holocaust apart from its time and
place in history. That requires us to know some-
thing about the Nazis and the brutal evil of their
ideology.
That is perspective, context, background —
all useful tools for journalists and historians in
pursuit of truth. But it is not the same as a false
balance that posits a fraudulent moral
equivalency.
Jeffrey did not grasp this crucial distinction.
That disqualified her from serving as House his-
torian.
Thursday, February 2
Women's Service League,
10:00 a m., Methodist Church
Fellowship Hall, Nursery
provided
7th & 8th Grade Boys Basketball
against Panhandle, Begins 5:00
p.m.
7th & 8th Grade Girls Basketball
at Panhandle, Begins 5:00 p.m.
Solo and Ensemble Recital,
Band Hall, Begins 5:30 p.m.
Canadian-Hemphill County Jr.
Livestock Show Weigh-in, 6:00
p.m., County Exhibition Building,
4-H Concession will be open
ESL, Alternative School, 5th &
Main, 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Alcoholics Anonymous, Court-
house Basement, 6 p.m.
CoDa, Courthouse Basement, 7
p.m.
Friday, February 3
Lions Club, Fire Hall, 12 noon.
Esmor Job Fair, 2:00 p.m., 7:00
p.m., City Auditorium
CHS Varsity & JV Basketball vs
Memphis, two CHS gyms, 5:00
p.m.
Jr. Livestock Show, Lamb Show,
7:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 4
UIL Literary Invitational Meet at
Dumas
UIL Solo and Ensemble Contest,
WTSU
Esmor Job Fair, 10:00 a.m.-4:00
p.m., City Auditorium
Jr. Livestock Show, Swing 8:30
a m. followed by Pee Wee
Show, Heifer Show, Steer Show
Buyers Supper, 5:00 p.m.,
County Exhibition Building
Stock Show Awards, 6:15 p.m.
Stock Show Sale, 6:30 p.m
Sunday, February 5
First Baptist Church, Sunday
School 9:45 a.m., Morning Wor-
ship, 11 a.m. Training Union, 6
p.m., Evening Worship, 7 p.m.
Central Baptist Church Sunday
School 10 a.m., Morning Wor-
ship 11 a m., Evening Worship 6
p.m.
Sacred Heart Catholic Church,
Sunday Mass, 10 a.m., CCD
Classes after 10 a.m. Mass.
Believer's Covenant Sunday
Worship, 10:30 a.m.
St. Anne's Episcopal Church,
6th & Kingman, 5 p.m. Bible
Study, 6 p.m., Evening Prayer.
First United Methodist Church,
Early Worship Service 8:30
a m., Sunday School 9:30 a m.,
Morning Worship 10:30 a.m.,
Evening Worship 6:30 p.m.
Assembly of God Christian
Education 10 a m., Evening
Worship, 6:30 p.m.
Pentecostal Church, Sunday
School, 10 a.m., Morning Wor-
ship 11 a.m., Evening Worship 7
p.m.
(TOURING THE PAST SEVERAL days, the
San Antonio Express-News has devoted
considerable news space to covering many of the
activities comprising the annual local obser-
vance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
birthday-holiday.
Among the numerous stories were ones
reporting on the leadership role teen-agers have
taken in organizing the MLK distinguished
achievement award to East Side activist and
educator Marcia Welch, the interfaith service
celebrating King’s legacy and the memorial-chal-
lenge march.
None of this coverage was “balanced” with
quotes from the Ku Klux Klan, White Aryan
Resistance or any other group advocating white
supremacy and racial hatred and violence.
As are accuracy, fairness and completeness,
balance can be a valuable component of good
news writing. In news stories reporting con-
troversy or conflict, all legitimate parties and
viewpoints deserve to have their say.
Journalism professors repeatedly emphasize
this principle in classes on news reporting and
writing. Editors sometimes have to remind cub
reporters of it. Experienced reporters follow it
almost automatically.
News reporters are not the only people for
whom balance is a professional principle. His-
torians also seek balance when they research
and write about the past.
All legitimate parties and viewpoints involved
in shaping human history deserve to be con-
sidered fairly, accurately and as completely as
the extant record allows.
Balance thus is important. But it is not a god
to be worshipped blindly or mindlessly. Doing so
can produce a forced, false balance that obscures
truth, rather than serving it — as both good news
reporting and good historical scholarship are
supposed to do.
Experienced historians and reporters learn to
distinguish between genuine balance and false
balance. Otherwise, they fall into the trip of
worshipping balance as an end in itself, rather
than a useful tool in the search for truth.
That’s the trap that ensnared Christina Jef-
List events in this
calendar by calling the
Chamber of
Commerce, 323-6234,
weekdays.
First Christian Church, Broad-
casting of previous Sunday’s
sermon 8 a.m. on Channel 6.
Sunday School 9:30 a.m., Morn-
ing Worship 10:30a.m., Evening
Worship 6 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church Sun-
day School 9:45 a.m., Worship
Service 11 a.m.
Church of Christ, Sunday Bible
Class 9:30 a m., Morning Wor-
ship 10:30 a m., Evening Wor-
ship 6 p.m. Wednesday Bible
Class, 7 p.m.
Cornerstone Church Outreach,
WCTU Building (downstairs), 6
p.m.
Monday, February 6
Recycling Kickoff, 10:00 a.m.,
City Hall
Hwy 83 Informational Meeting,
Lone Star Steakhouse, 12:00
noon, Dutch Treat
PEO, 1:30 p.m., Member’s
home
50’s Plus Club, 2:00 p.m., Club
Building
Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-
Anon, At-Ateen, Courthouse
Basement. 8 p.m.
7th & 8th Grade Girls Basketball
against Wellington, 5:00 p.m.
7th & 8th Grade Boys Basketball
at Wellington, 5:00 p.m.
sat sun mon tue wed
2 3 4J 5JLgLl7J 8
{&**«&*< RECORD
CANADIAN, HEMPHILL CO., TEXAS
THURSDAY 2 FEBRUARY 1995
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Ezzell, Nancy & Brown, Laurie Ezzell. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 5, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 2, 1995, newspaper, February 2, 1995; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1286128/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hemphill County Library.