While waiting in the doctor’s office today, I had a chance to read this week’s Time, which contained two one-page stories about the Talpiot Tomb.

The first focused on what it called sensationalistic scholarship.  It pointed out that scholars of previous generations waited until they had been in the field for a few decades before publishing a big work, whereas the trend now is to get out your sensationalistic story and make a big name for yourself.  Part of this it blames on The DaVinci Code, which has opened the market to speculative works.  It also mentions the contributions of those who have published on the Nag Hammadi library.

The second article dealt with the traditional feud between Hollywood and Christians.  It makes points similar to what I said in “Liberals, Christians, and Toilet Bowls.” The author made the point that the two sides need each other, with perhaps Hollywood needing conservative Christians more than conservative Christians need Hollywood.

What was missing from the articles, however, was a substantive discussion of the merits of the case.  Neither article dealt with the arguments put forth by Jacobovici nor the criticism leveled at him, except in the most cursory fashion.  The story was that someone had made the claim, regardless of whether it was true or not.

This seems to be a constant problem with the news these days, especially in TV and news magazines.  The story is always about the claims.  Rarely does the news deal in an in-depth way with whether or not the claims are valid.  They focus on the battle between the sides, even if one side has no credibility.  They will dutifully begin with the claims, mention that some scholars disagree with the claims, and end by saying that the question is yet to be resolved.  Nothing final is ever stated.

While one might argue that they are trying not to take sides in religious debates, this approach is not limited to stories about religion.  It goes for politics as well.  Take, for instance, the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that emerged to criticize John Kerry in the last presidential race.  The claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans had little basis in fact, but the news media did not care about that.  For them, the story was the fact that this group was criticizing a presidential candidate.  It didn’t matter if their criticisms were valid.  The media felt it was not their job to find out.  Both sides must be presented as equally valid, regardless of the credibility of the claims.

I am not arguing that Time should turn into a scholarly journal.  But if it is going to report on a story, it should at least delve into the question of the validity of the claims that are being made.  And, if the vast majority of scholars think that the claims of non-specialists are way off base, one would think such a fact should be reported.

Of course, the magazine could just be trying to entice readers by offering the same kind of sensationalistic scholarship that it criticizes in the article.  Nah, that couldn’t be it.

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