[I write a column for the Community Press newspapers. This is the column version of my essay on character assassination which I just submitted.]
Dick Ebersol, head of NBC Sports, recently met with President Bush about security arrangements surrounding the Olympics in Athens, Greece. They met one-on-one. Afterwards, at a gathering of the Television Critics Association, Ebersol said that Bush “really did know the facts” surrounding Olympic security arrangements. This observation evoked laughter from the audience, as though they thought the NBC sports chief was being ironic. He had to assure the crowd, “I’m serious.”
Ebersol’s experience of President Bush during his “face to face” didn’t conform to the media’s picture of Bush as an intellectual lightweight manipulated by his handlers. Because of that image, a roomful of intelligent people laughed at the different picture Ebersol painted.
In our media-saturated world, it doesn’t take long for public figures to be saddled with bad reputations, deserved or not.
And of course, the media heavyweights aren’t the only guilty parties when it comes to character assassination. Politicians themselves are facile in such assaults. President Bush, for example, authorized the recent production and webcasting of an ad that interspersed video clips of speeches by various Democratic Party leaders with one of Adolf Hitler, implying that there was a connection between the Democrats and one of the most murderous despots in human history. That's outrageous!
We can't control what people with their hands on the big media switches tell us about public figures. But we can control our reactions to the things we’re told about those figures. We need to be skeptical about assaults on character and wary of the ones doing the assaulting.
The public figures whose lives are sliced, diced, dissected, lampooned, and disposed of in the media are, after all, human beings. When their actions seem to violate good sense or cause harm, it’s absolutely legitimate to hold them accountable. But that’s not a license for character assassination.
One of the commandments God gave at Mount Sinai says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Martin Luther fleshed out the meaning of this commandment when he wrote:
“We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the most charitable way.”
I can’t claim to keep this or any of the other commandments perfectly. I’m a sinner and I sometimes violate God’s will for my life. So, as horrified as I am by media-generated lynchings of people’s reputations, I can be guilty of character assassination, too.
My victims aren’t just celebrities, though. I can be cruel in my assessments of non-celebrities, the people who populate my everyday life. Maybe you can say the same thing.
But there’s hope. The New Testament book of First John says: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous...” (First John 2:1)
For all of us who mar the reputations of others (for all who sin, period), Jesus Christ can be the road to our recovery. We can be forgiven and start with clean slates. When we turn from our sins and turn to Christ, God forgives and then, gives us the power to keep turning from sin...even the sin of character assassination.
Maybe we Americans ought to informally declare a National Clean Slate Day. On it, we'll grant forgiveness to each other for all our past slandering of others and then, we'll ask God to help us refrain from verbally assaulting anyone. We'll also ask God to help us to disagree with others without being cruel. We might even want to declare an International Clean Slate Day. Anybody interested?
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