GetReligion
Friday, April 04, 2025

Jerry Falwell Jr.

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Were some key quotes accurate? Concerning Jerry Falwell's anger at The New York Times

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As long as there is a Donald Trump, then Jerry Falwell, Jr., will be the face of Christian higher education for editors at The New York Times and elite media in the blue-zip-code media in the Northeast.

This is sad, since the coronavirus crisis — along with life after Millennial-era enrollments — is creating a wave of important local, regional and national stories about private education, including Christian higher education. Hold that thought, because tomorrow’s “Crossroads” podcast is dedicated to that topic.

But back to Falwell and the Times.

Faithful readers may remember a recent GetReligion post — “Rank these stories: Falwell rolls dice with virus or potential collapse of some small colleges?” — in which I chided the Great Gray Lady for its familiar Falwell obsessions. Here is how that piece opened:

What we have here are two stories about Christian higher education during the coronavirus crisis.

One is set in a rather remote part of America, but it involves — kind of — Citizen Donald Trump. The other is a national-level story with news hooks that will affect institutions (and thus newsrooms) in several hundred communities spread out from coast to coast.

So which of these two stories is grabbing national headlines, including chunks of time on TV news? That isn’t a very hard question, is it?

The critique included, logically enough, several chunks of the Times report that was so critical of Falwell. The fact that we did that resulted in GetReligion getting a letter from Liberty University threatening legal action.

What an interesting twist: GetReligion paired with the Times by the Falwell team because of material we published in a critique of the Trump-Falwell obsession at the Times. As it turns out, we were not alone, in terms of getting caught in that crossfire.


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This week's podcast: Are all those COVID-19 stories about rebel preachers fueled by bias?

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Veteran GetReligion readers will remember that I grew up as a Southern Baptist preacher’s kid in Texas and then, as an undergraduate, did a double major in journalism and history at Baylor University, along with a master’s in church-state studies.

Why bring up my Baptist credentials, right now? Well, they’re relevant to the topic that “Crossroads” host Todd Wilken and I discussed during this week’s podcast. (Click here to tune that in.)

You see, I have been listening to Bible Belt folks argue about journalism for a long time. My parents backed my career choice, but trust me when I say that I can quote chapter and verse on why many people think that “Christian” and “journalist” are words that don’t go together.

The bottom line: If you ask why so many journalists struggle to do accurate, balanced coverage of religion you’ll hear lots of conservatives in pews (and pulpits) say: “Well, journalists hate religious people.”

That’s a straw-man argument and simplistic, to boot. I have seen, and heard about, some strong examples of prejudice against religious folks in newsrooms, but I have never thought that negative prejudice was the biggest problem that skews religion coverage. For starters, I’ve met some journalists who don’t care enough about religion to, well, hate it. There’s way more journalists who think that there’s good religion and then there’s bad religion and they are pretty sure which is which.

Anyway, I continue to hear from GetReligion readers who are mad about all those news stories on independent preachers who ignore coronavirus crisis “shelter in place” orders requiring them to avoid business-as-usual worship. Here’s a chunk of the GetReligion post that served as the hook for the podcast:

… (The) question looks like this: Why are the few pastors who reject “shelter in place” orders getting so much ink with their face-to-face worship services, while the vast majority of clergy who have moved their rites online — often for the first time — are getting little or no coverage? I have already written about this twice at GetReligion — look here and then here. …

Here is what people are feeling: How come some angry preacher deep in the Bible Belt is getting all this coverage and, well, online efforts by the still massive Southern Baptist Convention are ignored?


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Rank these stories: Falwell rolls dice with virus or potential collapse of some small colleges?

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What we have here are two stories about Christian higher education during the coronavirus crisis.

One is set in a rather remote part of America, but it involves — kind of — Citizen Donald Trump. The other is a national-level story with news hooks that will affect institutions (and thus newsrooms) in several hundred communities spread out from coast to coast.

So which of these two stories is grabbing national headlines, including chunks of time on TV news?

That isn’t a very hard question, is it?

Here is the main New York Times headline on the latest chapter in the saga of Jerry Falwell, Jr., and his mano y mano fight with the coronavirus: “Liberty University Brings Back Its Students, and Coronavirus Fears, Too.” We can expect all kinds of updates and national coverage about this issue, of course.

LYNCHBURG, Va. — As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell Jr., its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health service about the rampaging coronavirus.

“We’ve lost the ability to corral this thing,” Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr. said he told Mr. Falwell. But he did not urge him to close the school. “I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, ‘This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn’t do,’” Dr. Eppes said in an interview.

So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. Another eight were told to self-isolate.

Note that Falwell is an “influential voice” in “the evangelical world” — as opposed to one corner of a large and complex movement. At the very least, this implies that he is an “influential voice” in the larger world of evangelical and conservative Protestant higher education — which is a hilarious statement. He’s “famous,” for sure. “Influential?” For some people, yes, but for most evangelicals — statistically — the answer is “no.”


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Friday Five: Jarrid Wilson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Wedgwood Baptist anniversary, Ostling on Godbeat

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Welcome to the published-later-in-the-day-than-usual edition of Friday Five.

I’m on a reporting trip to Tennessee with my regular job, and GetReligion Editor Terry Mattingly graciously gave me extra time to write this.

After that brief intro, let’s dive right into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: This is the story that I just can’t get out of my mind: the death of pastor, author and mental health advocate Jarrid Wilson by suicide.

In a post Thursday, tmatt delved into Religion News Service’s initial coverage of the tragedy. Look for much more discussion in a post Saturday related to GR’s weekly podcast.

2. Most popular GetReligion post: My post declaring that “Sorry, but Politico's long exposé on Jerry Falwell Jr. lacks adequate named sources to be taken seriously” was our No. 1 analysis of the week.


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Falwell Jr., Liberty University share GetReligion's post on Politico story — but did they actually read it?

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Another bizarre twist in the Jerry Falwell Jr. story came Tuesday when the Liberty University president accused former board members and employees of an “attempted coup.”

That claim came a day after a long, negative Politico piece on Falwell quoted two dozen anonymous sources characterized as “current and former high-ranking Liberty University officials and close associates of Falwell.”

How bad are things for Falwell and Liberty?

Well, both of their official Twitter accounts tweeted my GetReligion post from Monday in which I declared, “Sorry, but Politico's long exposé on Jerry Falwell Jr. lacks adequate named sources to be taken seriously.”

If you missed that post, you really should read it before finishing this one. What I am about to say will make much more sense with that background in mind. Also, that post has generated a lot of good discussion along with a few typical troll comments from people who obviously didn’t take time to read what I wrote.

Of course, a few folks on Twitter (here and here, for example) asked if Falwell and Liberty actually read what I wrote.

After all, my post was no fan letter to Falwell.


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Sorry, but Politico's long exposé on Jerry Falwell Jr. lacks adequate named sources to be taken seriously

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Undoubtedly, many critics of Jerry Falwell Jr. will love Politico’s long takedown of the controversial Liberty University president.

On Twitter, Jonathan Merritt, for example, called the piece published today a “blistering investigative report” for which the author should win an award.

“It's impossible to pick just one thing to highlight in this … cascade of scoops,” said Ruth Graham.

I’m no Falwell fan myself, and I’d be inclined to agree with the tweets above, except for one major, glaring concern: The writer relies almost entirely on anonymous sources.

“‘Someone’s Gotta Tell the Freakin’ Truth’,” screams Politico’s headline. “Jerry Falwell’s Aides Break Their Silence.”

But they don’t really break their silence — in terms of going on the record and criticizing Falwell.

Politico sets the scene like this:

At Liberty University, all anyone can talk about is Jerry Falwell Jr. Just not in public.

“When he does stupid stuff, people will mention it to others they consider confidants and not keep it totally secret,” a trusted adviser to Falwell, the school’s president and chancellor, told me. “But they won’t rat him out.”

That’s beginning to change.

Over the past year, Falwell, a prominent evangelical leader and supporter of President Donald Trump, has come under increasing scrutiny. News outlets have reported on business deals by Liberty University benefiting Falwell’s friends. Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen claimed that he had helped Falwell clean up racy “personal” photographs.

Based on scores of new interviews and documents obtained for this article, concerns about Falwell’s behavior go well beyond that—and it’s causing longtime, loyal Liberty University officials to rapidly lose faith in him.

More than two dozen current and former high-ranking Liberty University officials and close associates of Falwell spoke to me or provided documents for this article, opening up—for the first time at an institution so intimately associated with the Falwell family—about what they’ve experienced and why they don’t think he’s the right man to lead Liberty University or serve as a figurehead in the Christian conservative movement.

That’s a lot of sources, yes. But they’d have much more credibility if they had names attached to them. On-the-record sources with names attached have more skin in the game than those granted carte blanche to say whatever they want without their names attached. That’s basic Journalism 101 reality.


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Why teach journalism at religious private colleges? Let's start with some creation theology ...

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Why teach journalism at religious private colleges? Let's start with some creation theology ...

Here’s an old journalism saying that came up during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (please click here to tune that in). All together now: “It’s hard to cover a war when a general is signing your paycheck.”

That does this have to do with this past week’s GetReligion post about a much-discussed Washington Post piece about Jerry Falwell, Jr., Donald Trump and the student press? Click here for more background on that essay by former Liberty editor Will Young: “Thinking about Liberty University and decades of journalism struggles at private colleges.”

Publications operated by the military are, literally, providing news about the actions of their bosses. They are trying to cover their own publishers. The same thing is true at private colleges and universities. Student journalists (and, yes, their journalism professors) work for news organizations that ultimately answer to administration officials that they inevitably have to cover.

Things can get tense. But to understand the realities here, readers need to know a few facts. Here is a chunk of a Liberty University report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an organization that frequently clashes with schools on the cultural left and right. Many critics call TheFIRE.org a conservative organization because of its defense of old-school First Amendment liberalism.

Note the first sentence here.

As a private university, Liberty is not legally bound by the First Amendment, and may decline to protect students’ free speech in favor of other institutional values. But for years, Falwell has publicly held out the university’s commitment to free expression as far superior to that which other institutions make — indeed, as among the very best in the nation and among the cornerstones of his institution.

Liberty’s policies, hidden from public view behind a password-protected web portal, are devoid of any written commitment that would effectuate its leadership’s proclamations. FIRE has acquired a copy, however, and determined that the policies provide Falwell and Liberty administrators with sweeping control over all manner of campus expression.

Here is another crucial passage:


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Thinking about Liberty University and decades of journalism struggles at private colleges

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Over the past week or so, I have received a steady stream of email asking me to comment on a recent essay in The Washington Post that focused on an always touchy subject — efforts to do journalism education on private college campuses.

You wouldn’t know that’s what the essay is about if you merely scanned the headline — which offers your typical Donald-Trump-era news hook. The article is better than this headline.

Inside Liberty University’s ‘culture of fear’

How Jerry Falwell Jr. silences students and professors who reject his pro-Trump politics.

Yes, Trump plays a role in this piece and I am sure that Falwell’s over-the-top loyalty to the president is causing lots of tension at Liberty. However, that isn’t the main source of conflict in this article.

The main problem? Like many private schools (and even a few state schools), Liberty — on academic paper — says that it has a “journalism” program. The problem is what top administrators actually want is a public relations program that prepares students to work in Christian nonprofit groups, think tanks and advocacy publications.

This is a problem that is much bigger than Liberty. I have encountered this syndrome on campuses that are left of center as well as those on the right, during a quarter-century of so of teaching students at (or from) Christian colleges. More than a few college leaders — like Falwell — don’t want parents, donors and trustees reading student-written news material about real life on their campuses.

Real life? Here is the issue that I always use as my line in the sand, when studying conflicts about college journalism programs: Will school officials allow news reports about issues that produce public documents, like police reports.

Sure enough, that’s where former Liberty University journalist Will Young begins his Post essay. This is long, but essential:


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In the 'battle at the border,' evangelical leaders jostle for Trump-era media relevancy

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Unless you’ve been under a rock recently, you know much of the country is fixated on the mess at our border.

What’s not as visible is how evangelical Christians are fighting among themselves over all of this. In the latest development, an old foot soldier in evangelical warfare contacted all his followers to say that President Donald Trump is doing the right thing.

That foot soldier would be Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, now 83. He retired from Focus 10 years ago (although HuffPost says he was forced out), then founded “Family Talk,” a nonprofit that produces his radio programs. More on him in a moment.

With thousands of people each day forcing their way into the United States, there has erupted amongst evangelicals what I like to call the “battle at the border.”

Many of you may have heard of the spitting match between Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., and the Rev. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Moore was mourning the border situation on Twitter — specifically conditions endured by children — and Falwell slammed into him for being unqualified to speak about the matter.

The people following this have mostly been religion beat specialists. Amy Sullivan had one of the better descriptive lines in calling it a “tale of two tweets,” as it showed huge fissures among evangelicals. The secular media didn’t do a whole lot with this inside-baseball battle, but there’s now a term, #SBCdeepstate and a lot of grandstanding on What Would Jesus Do At The Border.

Last Friday, a Catholic bishop thought he had the answer to that one, which is why he personally escorted a family across the border even though they’d been turned back once by the border patrol.

Then you have the Rev. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, who in this Christian Post story tells of his visit to the border and how everything there is peachy keen.

Of course, the Babylonian Bee had to run a piece on the lunacy of it all.


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