It does not take a majority, or anything like it, to wield an effec tive influence for truth and against evil in such places. It takes a clear sighted minority. As Christians, charged by our Lord to proclaim and occupy, we have been segregated out of the one place where the most people can be reached the most often — the mass media. There are times when I tell my editors of a story of Christian significance. Some times they tell me to cover it. To give you some idea of the extent and rapidity of the news process, it is possible for me to go out and cover such a story and to come back and sit down at my typewriter at 5 p.m. and to write a story by 6:45 p.m. that will, three hours later, begin to go out in nearly 900,000 copies. A newspaper is usually read by several people: Father reads it, mother reads it, brother reads it, sister reads it. So those 900,000 copies reach, in a little over 12 hours, some 2 million readers. Those copies go into every state in the nation, to high places in foreign capitals, into the White House and to most Congressmen, to hundreds of thousands of homes in a wide urban area, to most uni versities, to corporation offices, to a high percentage of influential and active people. That isn't all. A copy of the story goes straight to The New York Times News Service, that paper's syndicated newswire, and it is car ried to 210 other newspapers in the United States with a total cir culation of over 30 million copies and a potential audience, I am told, though the figure staggers me, of close to 100 million readers .With
in less than 24 hours that one story may have touched multiplied mil lions of readers. That is outreach! Last week, in the offices of one of the ten largest book publishers in the country, I saw a copy of a book that is about to be published —The Complete Art of Witchcraft, by Sybil Leek. Now you know that this is darkness and I know it, but the young editor putting out this book does not know it. He will soon run this book out to the pub lic, inculcating men and women and young people into witchcraft. Let's just consider what would occur if a Christian happened to be among the chief editors of that publishing house and the proposal to publish a book on witchcraft came up and the Christian said, No — we're not going to let our presses publish this kind of trash. He would turn that book back at the very source from reaching the public. He would exercise an in fluence for Christ in a very critical area. Truth has fallen in the public squares of America — in the mass public sector — because there are far too few to speak out for her there. The mass media which have daily access to the public consciousness are not something wisely to be left entirely in the hands of unbeliev ers! Why do we not have in America some major newspapers and mag azines owned and operated and chiefly edited by believers? There are areas of the world where that would be impossible, where all the media are concentrated in the hands of the government for its propaganda. In those nations, Christians could yearn with all their Page 53
Made with FlippingBook Annual report