Call me crazy, but I think news journalists should concern themselves with factually verifiable accounts of the real world, not with unprovable mystical nonsense. And I mean that term “nonsense” literally, to mean not based on sensory evidence.
I refer to Andrea Dukakis’s June 10 article for Colorado Public Radio, under the banner of “CPR News,” in which Dukakis says she “searches for an afterlife.” This is a difficult topic, as Dukakis frames her discussion in the context of the death of her adult daughter three years ago. So that’s an incredibly sad story. But a journalist’s grief does not justify shrouding a news outlet in mysticism.
Part of the social context is that the majority of Republican primary voters (which includes unaffiliated voters who choose to cast a ballot in the GOP race) chose either Scott Bottoms or Victor Marx. Marx overcame an early deficit to Barb Kirkmeyer to become the likely Republican candidate for governor.
Both Bottoms and Marx are religious figures. Bottoms, also a state representative, is lead pastor at the Church at Briargate in Colorado Springs. Marx is a self-proclaimed Christian evangelist and ordained pastor.
Bottoms has claimed that literal “demons” are behind Critical Race Theory, that his “liberal” opponents pray to Satan (knowingly or not), that the state legislature is a “demonic stronghold,” and that claims supportive of transgender people are “demonic.”
Marx is known, along for his “high-risk” ministries and his martial-arts claims, as being an exorcist or something like that (as I’ve discussed) focused on “demonic forces.”
Marx’s May interview with 9News’s Kyle Clark is remarkable. Clark later related to Ross Kaminsky (as noted by Corey Hutchins) that Marx offered to perform an exorcism (or demon-related prayer) on Clark — implying that Marx thought Clark was or might be demonically influenced. (I guess that’s one way for an interviewee to rationalize a bad performance.)
During his interview with Clark, Marx said that, although he has jokingly referred to himself as a “reluctant exorcist,” he does not regard what he does technically as exorcism, because exorcism typically is associated with Catholic priests, and he sees a demon as “attached” or “assigned” to a person rather than inside the person. So, he explained, he does not literally cast a demon “out” of a person (because it was never “in” the person); he prays for a demon to leave a person alone, then he banishes a demon “to perfect judgment from Christ.” So, even though Marx calls himself a “reluctant exorcist,” he’s using that term loosely and doesn’t think what he’s doing technically qualifies, even though his practice supposedly involves relieving a person of demonic forces.
Here’s why that’s relevant. No one at CPR ever would suggest taking seriously Bottoms’s claims that those supportive of transgender people are led by demonic forces or Marx’s claims that he casts demons away from people. CPR would never publish a headline proclaiming that a CPR journalist “searches for demons.” Because that would be ridiculous. Yet somehow, the standards are different when it comes to other mystical beliefs.
There is a huge difference between, as Clark did, reporting on others’ mystical beliefs, particularly the beliefs of political figures, and a journalist him or herself seriously entertaining such beliefs via a news outlet. I don’t object to news journalists reporting on others’ mystical beliefs; I object to them actively promoting those beliefs.
I was surprised to read that Dukakis intends, in subsequent interviews, to take seriously “mediums” as experts on the afterlife. That is journalistic malpractice. Interestingly, in his 1924 book exposing as frauds mediums and other spiritualists, Harry Houdini passed through Denver to expose the practices of someone who supposedly photographed ghosts.
At least Dukakis acknowledges that not everyone takes mediums seriously. Yet, in a follow-up piece, without a hint of skepticism, she mentions mediums as if they seriously speak to the dead.
Dukakis also exuberantly employs the logical fallacy of denying the onus of proof. She writes, “No one has proven the existence of an afterlife. But no one has proven it doesn’t exist either.” That is the line of charlatans of all varieties. As author & critic Christopher Hitchens pointed out, “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” And are not news outlets in the business of evidence rather than baseless speculation? Would CPR take Bottoms seriously if he said (related to something he’s actually said) “no one has proven the existence of a pedophile ring out of the state capitol but no has proven it doesn’t exist either”? CPR’s Tom Hesse noted on this topic, “No one else has been able to turn up evidence of this.”
Again, I have no objection to news journalists covering others’ beliefs. As Dukakis writes, “A survey by the Pew Research Center found more than 80 percent of Americans believe in some sort of an afterlife, though the definitions vary.” That’s certainly an interesting social phenomenon. And some people who advocate belief in an afterlife actually offer arguments, as Plato did (although his arguments for an immortal soul were terrible) and as CU’s Michael Huemer does today (even though I think his arguments are pretty weak too). Insofar as Dukakis engages with arguments, rather than charlatans and obvious fallacies, I don’t object to a news journalist writing about views on the afterlife (although I’d raise concerns about priorities).
Maybe the CPR crew would reply that what Dukakis is doing in her series is more opinion journalism than news journalism. If so, then shouldn’t it be marked as opinion writing (as my columns are) rather than as news reporting? Regardless, the opinion label does not justify fact-free claims and obviously biased selection.
Usually, when CPR covers mystical beliefs, it likewise takes a stance of journalistic neutrality. For example, when CPR’s Michael Elizabeth Sakas covered the book Colonial Horrors, discussing colonial beliefs that “hostile natives, monsters, dangerous wildlife” and more were “all orchestrated by Satan in an effort to wipe them out,” Sakas did not seriously express the idea that Satan really was working behind the scenes.
Last December, CPR’s Elaine Tassy covered Ute spiritual practices respectfully but without making CPR an advocate for the underlying beliefs. Likewise, CPR’s Hayley Sanchez covered a church’s use of psychedelics from a journalistic perspective.
I’m an opinion columnist, so I don’t mind offering my views here, just so readers know where I’m coming from. I agree that consciousness is not material, in the sense that our conscious awareness of a red object (for example) cannot be reduced to photoreceptors and wavelengths of light. However, consciousness is a natural phenomenon; it emerges in the context of a material substrate (the brain), and it cannot exist without a material substrate. I believe that “soul,” properly understood, refers to consciousness and cannot survive without the body. Thus, there is no afterlife. And that’s okay. There’s just life. We get only one life, it’s of limited time, so we should make the most of it. We can keep our deceased loved ones a living part of us through our memories of them and through our continued reflections of their example.
As for news journalists, they should stick to what can be proved and not use the news pages to pursue some personal mystical quest or spiritualist therapy session. This is especially true for outlets such as CPR, which obviously regards some people’s mystical beliefs as more valid or acceptable than others, even though there is no objective reason to embrace one brand of mysticism over any other.
CPR should leave mysticism to the mystics and stick to the news. Isn’t that mission enough?
Header image by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash.
