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.