Tuesday, June 23, 2009
News / Chicagoland Good journalism about Scientology
Posted by Whet Moser on 06.23.09 at 12:34 PM
If you need a reminder of how journalism can be totally fascinating and wonderful, do take a peek - well, technically, it's incredibly rich and lengthy - at the St. Pete Times's special report on Scientology (h/t Graeme Wood, who is also worth reading).
Furthermore, do also read Tori Marlan's 2002 Reader cover story Death of a Scientologist; it's really good.
Greg said he shouldn't have been on the advanced levels. "This was actually told to me in early 1981," he wrote, "but I continued pursuing these levels through the '80s and '90s, against church policy. (Anyone who has had psychiatric counseling and/or psychiatric drugs, as I had had at college, is not supposed to be able to receive any auditing, let alone the advanced levels at Flag.)"
Barnes put Greg in touch with other high-level defectors. One had spent seven years trying to get through OT7. She says Greg wasn't coping well. "He was having dark thoughts about himself and felt he was covered with BTs," she says. "He felt he couldn't get rid of them."
Comments (15)
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^^^ This ^^^. Brass balls journalism is brave indeed. Can I please add the name of Nathan Baca of KSEQ, a local station near Hemet California, where the abuses we are talking about were taking place? He was the first to open this can of worms with an 11-part investigation into the cult a few months back. For $25 an hour no less. He, and the Tambe Bay Times writers, deserve credit and I hope that the editors at the big papers and stations will recognize their talent and ethos. Thanks, Dave
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So, the SP Times sinks to a new journalistic low and devotes a huge 3-part article to unproven (and unprovable) gossip and rumors, and now you're fawning all over it? Why? There's nothing remotely journalistic about it, and if you just want to hate on Scientology, come right out and say so and stop acting like there's any factual basis for doing so. The SP Times piece is a stacked-deck smear piece from start to finish, with not even the faintest whiff of pretense of fairness.
Thanks, Whet, for taking us back to that sad but true article about the Greg Bashaw death. Marlan did an excellent job on that so good journalism is right! The SP Times will probably be up for a yet another Pulitizer this excellent series on this cult. I also agree with poster Dave about Nathan Baca but he is actually a News Channel 3 HD reporter for KESQ, the California Coachella Valley - Palm Springs area ABC affiliate.
I used to believe in this huge urban legend, this meme, this cultural myth of our times that's grown by leaps and bounds on the internet. You know, the myth that there's an all-powerful super-evil UFO-worshipping cult whose tentacles reach into everything, bribing politicians and police and movie stars, hypnotizing the public into being controlled by a weird electronic device that makes you want to join pyramid schemes and buy armloads of books. And then they tell you to stop talking to your family, to abort your children, to dress in funny outfits and live in a concentration camp gulag. Or maybe they just kill you. Then I grew up a little. Okay, a LOT. And realized that I used to enjoy such outlandish tales for the same reason I used to enjoy talking with buddies about the CIA and the NSA and the Bilderbergers in college, and speculate on how these shadowy secret guys were gonna declare worldwide martial law, you know, any day now. I no longer see hints of eviltry by the Illuminati or the Freemasons or DARPA or the Knights Templar or any other secret societies in the news. And that includes Scientologists. Are they perfect? No, far from it. But what man is? Are they anything like the lurid myth that disgruntled weirdos have been trying to foment for years? Naw. But it makes for a great story to give ourselves a shiver while roasting marshmallow around the cyber-campfire, doesn't it?
I wonder who it was that decided this trashy bit of journalism held a respectable place in a newspaper? I am beginning to wonder if the Physician's Sunshine Payments Act should apply to newspapers as well - then, at least, the public would get a good idea of who pays for certain data to be force-fed into the public's throat. All evidence points false information like this to be yet another well-versed article put out by those with no minds of their own. I suggest you take a look at your own mind, and get the facts. scientology.org
They took a big chance publishing this. CoS is going to unleash the worst kind of "fair game" against the newspaper for this (not to mention all the Scientologists posting transparent defenses in news article comments, pretty much their last resort since Wikipedia banned them for blatant misuse.) But the old days are over. Scientology can no longer harass, intimidate and litigate while cloaked in the shadows. Everything they do ends up on YouTube, Twitter, and the forums, and everybody knows what CoS is all about. Now they have to own up to what they are ... and it ain't pretty.
I still think Scientology is awesome. I don't even care if every word the paper said is true (and it isn't). Scientology works for me, and it works for lots of others. That's all that matters.
folks, take a look at the comments and consider this, those who are defending COS aren't disputing the charges, they are attacking the paper and not the charges. If it wasn't true, then why aren't they disputing it? Easy, COS doesn't allow its members to question the church. Google operation snow white and operation freak out and then decide if the reports are true.
It was very brave article especially considering Scientology's history of harassing and silencing critics, google "Fair Game", and more information can be found at http://www.whyweprotest.net/en/
I was a scientologist for almost 11 years. There was a time I would say or do anything to protect the church even if I knew it wasn't true. I never saw anybody physically struck but I did see people being physically restrained, staff members who were undernourished (I later found out they are only paid $23 a week) and I also saw two people having a severe psychological breakdown. This UFO cult is dangerous. The mindless following of Jim Jones, the philosophy of Heavens Gate and the fervor of David Koresh (Waco) all rolled into one. Members of the public please heed my experience. Scientology looks very different once you're in it.
"folks, take a look at the comments and consider this, those who are defending COS aren't disputing the charges, they are attacking the paper and not the charges. If it wasn't true, then why aren't they disputing it?" uh... we ARE disputing it, fool. We're siding with DM, who disputes the entirely of the article. The point is, the article is composed of "he said/she said" and no PROOF. Hearsay is not PROOF. A dozen people who tell the same lie are still telling a lie.
Hello, My name is Lafayette Ronald Hubbard I am an egotistical paranoid psychotic, self-serving salesman, compulsive liar and a con-man extraordinaire, I have millions convincing crazy people that they have alien spirits attached to their bodies. I know, it's hard to believe, but they pay me to teach them how to get rid of them. To further convey some sense of my life, the following chronicle is provided. In addition to the "discoveries" that I've made up in my own little head, I dropped out of high school and flunked out of college, but I tell people that I'm a doctor. As a master mariner I was decommission twice, but I tell people that I'm a war hero. As an explorer I wasted vast sums of money looking for buried treasure, but I tell people that I'm some great explorer. And most recently as a successful flim-flam man getting people to believe my crazy Sci-Fi stories is actually a religion.. stop laughing... it's true, they actually believe me. :-) xenu-dot-net
I think what is missed by some is that the former executives under David Miscavige aren't 'anti-Scientology'. They clearly state that these horrendous actions instigated and carried out under Miscavige are a departure from the actual tenets and principles of the subject. This isn't an attack on Scientology. It's an attack on irrationality. A does not equal A in this case.
