Letter from the editor

The world's worst?

Get the straightjacket and call the police - there's a madman on the loose.

As it turns out, that crazy guy is me. Well, I'm not exactly crazy, but according to a woman on staff at the University of Montana's Journalism School, I do have a mental illness.

No, I don't stalk people, have multiple personalities or plan to take over the world. My problem is much, much worse: I went to a Bible College.

Yes, because of this insidious disease, I have gone to such lengths as serving dinner to homeless street kids, sponsoring a girl in Ecuador and doing housework for those who were unable to do it themselves. I am so gripped by this evil that I even get up a little earlier on Sunday mornings to encourage high school students to live a life of hope and meaning.

Lock me up now before I do anything worse!

"It is discouraging that the editor of a local paper brags about going to bible college to study religion and journalism," she wrote me. "The world is truly going to hell in a hand basket."

Little did I know that my role as editor is slowly bringing the world to an end. Should I put that on my future resume? I could put that as a bulleted description of an achievement: ? Sent world to hell. Luckily for everyone, global destruction isn't on my 10-year plan. The retirement package is no good.

"This is a dangerous era in which we live, mainly due to religion," she wrote.

That's actually true. Militant Islam is directly responsible for hundreds - if not thousands - of deaths every day. And Christians have done their damage in the past as well. No religion is exempt from its bad times or bad people. But let's not entertain the ridiculous notion that religion is the world's greatest evil.

James defines true, pure religion as that which helps the needy and defends the weak. (I know I just paraphrased a verse from the Bible, but I'm too ignorant to realize that it's just a book of made-up Jewish myths. I apologize.)

So is someone who is motivated by his or her faith to help those in the community the world's greatest threat?

According to her, being a person of faith is incompatible with being a journalist, because I don't have a perspective on reality. Because I lack this mental capability, I am unable to deliver news to the public.

"I hope you learn to control your mental illness in order to be an objective journalist," she said. "But I'm a realist, and that seems unlikely."

Wait, I'm the crazy one?

Unfortunately, the fact that I'm sick in the head makes it impossible for me to fix the problem. I can't rectify what I don't recognize. (Note to drug companies: If you can make a pill that cures religious mental problems, I'll put you in touch with the University of Montana J-School. There is at least one sure-fire investor there.)

In spite of a terrific, grade-school rant, my No. 1 fan brings up a good point: Can Christians be good reporters? Can anyone of faith accurately inform the public? Am I going to turn the Bigfork Eagle into the Al-Jazeera of Northwest Montana?

First of all, absolute objectivity is an absolute myth. No one analyzes anything in a vacuum. We are all influenced by experiences, culture and world view. Every single person is biased in some way, which is often why two people can look at the same research and come up with radically different conclusions. Should the first argument be that one of them has a mental illness?

The guidelines that I specified in last week's column - that the paper will be excellent, relevant and fair - have always been goals I've strived to meet. For instance, I interviewed the first gay couple from the United States who went to Canada to get married. Do I think homosexuality is a natural, positive thing? No, but I spent a few enjoyable hours with them looking through their wedding album and gave them the respect and dignity they command as human beings. After the story was published, they wrote to me and thanked me for being a fair and competent journalist.

While attending Multnomah, I won a paid internship through the University of Oregon, which isn't exactly a fortress of conservative Christianity.

I wrote a story about a group of people trying to legalize marijuana. No complaints.

I wrote a story about a woman in prison for killing her abusive husband. No complaints.

I won an award from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association about my coverage of a church scandal involving a pastor who had molested a girl.

I've covered car crashes, sporting events and school board meetings, and I have never been accused of twisting facts or misquoting someone. The day may come when I am accused of that, but I will do my best to prove the claim false.

The fact is, most people can report information accurately because "news" is not the reporter's story. News is observable events and people speaking about the event. Sure, anything can be twisted or slanted to fit an agenda, but those tactics are usually very transparent.

I would actually argue that having faith is an asset rather than a liability. According to the American Atheists Web site, about 14 percent of Americans claim to have no religious affiliation. Apparently, 86 percent of people living in the United States have malfunctioning brains. That means at least eight out of every 10 people I interview will have some type of belief system they can't perfectly prove by a scientific process. If a journalist is bent on keeping anything religious out of the newspaper, then the whole story will rarely be told.

And that would be the real journalistic failure.