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On October 18, The Washington Post published a very brief comment I made about a photograph in one of their Metro section articles. The comment appeared on their Saturday "Free For All" page, which is where they publish readers' grammatical nitpicks, complaints about coverage (or lack thereof), and comments on the appropriateness of photos. Here's what my comment looked like after the editors got through with it:
Packing Them In
Megan Greenwell's article on churches in Prince George's County ["Still Flocking to Prince George's," Religion, Oct. 11] was accompanied by a large photo of First Baptist Church of Glenarden's sanctuary filled with people. Clearly visible was a bright pink slide on one of the projection screens, with the message "Let's talk about Sex." Humorous, yes, but irrelevant to the focus of the story. Was this the best shot your photographer could come up with?
[end]
I thought that captured it pretty well, since the article itself was about people who had moved away from Prince George's County, but still attended their old churches out of a continued sense of connection to their community. The photo made it look as though the church was using sensational topics to draw people in.
In today's Post Free For All section, Robert Braxton of Fairfax writes:
Sects in the Church
In my opinion, Post readers go overboard in second-guessing the selection of photographs to print. The latest example was the letter from Nancy McGuire ["Packing Them In," Free for All, Oct. 18]. In a culture where unplanned pregnancy among teenagers remains a problem, I fail to see humor in a screen projecting the words "Let's talk about sex." And anyone bothered by that in a church must be unfamiliar with the biblical directive "know thy wife."
Besides, have not churches always dealt in sects?
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I actually agree with Mr. Braxton's point about the need for such conversations, but that wasn't really the point I was making. Did Mr. Braxton not read carefully, was he just using my comment as a springboard for his own, or was my point really not clear?
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2 comments:
Maybe that note just inadvertently hit a nerve -- maybe he was anticipating that someone would tell him his program was inappropriate and had a knee-jerk reaction, instead of seeing that your comment wasn't even directed at him or his program. Just asking for a little more good taste on the part of the paper. (Or maybe he just wanted to show off his clever word play.)
I wonder if there shouldn't be a new acronym to join LOL and BRB... MTP: "Missed the point."
MTP could be useful in many contexts. It sounds like a first cousin to RTP, "read the poop".
-- The Wordchemist
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