When an audience member Friday morning pointed out that her speech “could have been ghost-written by Bill Moyers and aired on PBS,” and asked how she could have credibility among Fox News-watching conservative Christians, Robinson said, to audience applause: “I don't recognize any other obligation than to say what is true.”
That sounds a little Pharasaical itself. One could infer from it that "I'm always right and I never lie." We are obligated to say what we think is the truth. We have to be careful not to think that everything we say is the truth.
But I think she is right about the climate a fear, though for me it is the ongoing whining about technological change or hypothetical environmental disaster. As for the Great recession and the lukewarm recovery, it's easy for her to pooh-pooh those who have become fearful about their economic future: She's got a good income.
Another viewpoint: Why Marilynne Robinson, Narrative Calvinist, Doesn't Fear Fox News.
My question would be: Why would she fear Fox News in the first place? I don't. I don't fear CNN or MSNBC, either.
Post bumped.
Regarding Fox, case in point, from Glenn Reynolds: ANOTHER ONE DOWN.
Post bumped again.
"to say what I BELIEVE to be true" is what I heard. I wrote this about it at Christianity Today: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2012/05/marilynne_robinson_narrative_c.html
ReplyDeleteWhy would anybody be afraid of FoxNews? Maybe fear is too strong a word.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Fox has a long history of setting up straw-man targets in order to knock them down, many of their commentators have a slippery relationship with facts and data, and one could mention other practices that make one question their very use of the word "News." One is wary of calling what FoxNews does reporting. (And don't get into the usual "fairness" guff about MSNBC or CNN in response. The point here is not who's right, and who's left, it's about actual journalism vs. rhetorical posturing.)
So some caution when appearing on Fox would seem to be in order, therefore. (This is not to say that caution and wariness do not apply elsewhere, as well.)
In fact, this whole thing sort of feels like a straw-man set-up itself, with Marilynne Robinson as the target. Whether she said "believe to be true" or left "believe" out seems rather minor and irrelevant, unless one is looking for a way to knock her down any which way they can.
I disagree. I spent 30 years in the news business and the reason Fox News is successful is quite simple: All the other news outlets are predictably to the left in what remains a center-right country. Personally, I find MSNBC an absolutely fifth-rate news outlet. If you actually watch Fox, you will see that they actually do have people voicing views that are not "conservative." Bob Beckel comes immediately to mind. Even Al Sharpton appears there from time to time. Exactly who is the conservative voice on MSNBC or CNN? Show me the "fair and balanced" on either. And don't even bring up PBS, which seems to think we'll all think they're fair because they're so damned dull.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Robinson is she brings up Fox News because it's a way of pandering: "Oh, please don't think I'm a right-winger just because I believe in God. I hate Fox News, too."