Thursday 27 November 2008

Another Appearance over Substance

Yesterday I could have blogged on Ruth Gledhill's supposed splash about excluding the Southern Cone from the voting of the Anglican Consultative Council. I didn't, because I could see straight away that there was nothing in it or her blog backup. We learnt that the issue did not arise at the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting and this was only mentioned because of her report. This November 24-26 meeting focused on budgetary issues and planning the next meeting of the ACC.

Here is yet more in the world of appearances. To justify her existence, Ruth Gledhill has to keep producing these exclusives. Yet they amount to less and less. She is no more than as a blogger but with a job, an address book and a telephone. There is a pro-GAFCON bias there, only because it stirs things up. This declining reputation and continuing world of appearances is one substantial reason why the press was treated so badly and sidelined at the Lambeth Conference last summer. Of course Lambeth set out to maintain its own world of appearances, and therefore did itself no good by the sidelining as it just intensified ongoing suspicions.

When it comes to the press, it is less about quality and more feel the width, and increasingly superfluous.

4 comments:

Ruth Gledhill said...

Hi thanks for the mention. The press wasn't treated badly at Lambeth we were treated extremely well. My story wasn't a splash, in fact it didn't even get in the paper. It went online only. I checked with my source, who is in a position to know, and they have insisted the story is fine.. Apart from that your blog is great!

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

I only saw the online version. I seemed to remember complaints about sidelining, but this may have been confused with lobby type groups.

I have wondered if I should change the image now that you have...

Ruth Gledhill said...

It is true I did complain along with others at the start, about being 'behind the wire' and so on. But we were listened to and things became really good. This was thanks in particular I believe to Rowan Williams himself and to Peter Crumpler. It was a really great Lambeth from a journalistic perspective and I am truly grateful for the efforts of all the professionals involved to make it so.

June Butler said...

What about getting the story wrong? Doesn't that count for anything?

I knew the report was, very likely, not true, without anything remotely resembling an inside source.