(Paul Handley of The Church Times kindly asked me to write the Press column for last week’s issue while Andrew Brown was on vacation. In return, as you will see at the bottom of the column, they ordained me. I think this has certain implications involving my pension which my employers are unaware of — Jim Naughton)
FOR AN American church flak like me, learning to work with the British news media has been similar to learning to drive on British roads. The enterprises are fundamentally similar, and yet one’s reflexes need reconditioning to avoid accidents.
As a former journalist, I was struck first by the difference in the ways that American and British journalists attribute (or don’t attribute) the information in their stories. The British press is freer in its use of anonymous sources than its American counterpart. One is constantly reading that a paper “has learnt” something. Well, how, exactly?