Journalism and cultural illiteracy

From 4 Problems With Media Confusion Over Ted Cruz’s Quoting Of Scripture by Mollie Hemingway.

In some ways Hemingway is making a mountain out of a molehill. Yet I think she is also quite correct.

Hemingway is referencing a statement by Kathleen Parker, a journalist.

One observation. I don’t know… this seems to have slipped through the cracks a little bit but Ted Cruz said something that I found rather astonishing. He said, you know, “It’s time for the body of Christ to rise up and support me.” I don’t know anyone who takes their religion seriously who would think that Jesus should rise from the grave and resurrect himself to serve Ted Cruz. I know so many people who were offended by that comment. And you know if you want to talk about grandiosity and messianic self-imagery I think he makes Ted Cruz makes Donald Trump look rather sort of like a gentle little lamb.

Hemingway goes on to tear apart Parker's seeming ignorance of even the most basic precepts of Christianity. Ignorance that is so basic that Parker misunderstands completely what Cruz was saying, to the point of mischaracterizing it.

Hemingway does a nice fisking as far as it goes.

But I think Hemingway is pointing to a symptom of a larger issue. Most of the main stream media are college educated, have always worked in services, live in major cities, and are generally secular/agnostic. They are, on all these vectors, fundamentally different from the rest of America where the great majority of people live in the suburbs and country, where they may be very smart but haven't completed college, where many have worked in the physical side of the economy and not just the white collar section, and where most not only regularly attend church but take their religious beliefs seriously.

I tend to think many of the prejudices and biases of the mainstream media are essentially a class issue and I am pretty confident that is most of the issue. Hemingway points out that there is an epistemological issue as well. If you are a secular agnostic, you may have a simple issue of cultural illiteracy that blinds you to understanding the majority of your fellow Americans.

Hemingway may have found a particularly egregious example of this journalistic cultural illiteracy but I don't think it is an uncommon failing.