Or so goes the breathless headline from ekklesia, an ecumenical news service Over There:
Quakers to break tradition and allow journalists at annual meeting
The Philly papers have looked in on Philadelphia Yearly Meeting occasionally, for local controversy and the like. But only occasionally.
Britain Yearly Meeting feels it is different. The body (or those who carry its sense of self) have a very exalted view of the proceedings; though the exaltation may have as much to do with good old Anglo class consciousness as anything like, say, religion. As the ekklesia report noted:
<< Concern was expressed about the tendency to stereotype journalists, who were described by one participant as “an unpleasant group”. >>
The technical term is, I believe, a “rum lot.” Journalists, or more loosely scribblers, are after all, mainly of the lower-middle class, who have to work for a living, and are over-full of damned cheek. Anyhow the place for tradespeople is not in the main hall, but below stairs somewhere, to be summoned when required.
By contrast, in the U.S., many of the liberal YM poohbahs would kill for some media attention. Um, that is, unless there’s real controversy within the body, in which case they react in much the same way as the Superintendents from the pastoral groups (or White House press secretaries), wanting only the most sanitized, properly vetted and euphemized version to reach the public print or telly screen.
These sentiments exist across the pond as well, as the report carefully described:
<< some opponents of the move admit to being motivated by fear of how Friends would be described in the media. >>
Indeed, the decision to admit the scribes involves a muted recognition that the body in London has, alas, come down a good bit in the world. Once when its hall was filled, the ranks included titans of industry – even owners of some of the major papers; Members of Parliament; and other certified Establishmentarians, indeed a few thought to be quite close to palace circles.
Thus the media were not only unfit to enter, but unnecessary: the Right People would learn, discreetly, what was significant to know about the proceedings.
Now, alas, the Yearly Meeting is populated mainly by librarians, teachers, social workers and retirees from similar professions. Respectable, hmmm yes, but hardly the ones to make the mighty tremble, indeed only a small notch or two above – well, reporters.
The dispatch concluded that << While journalists will be invited from next year, the Quaker Communications Department has been asked to work out the details with sensitivity. It is likely that media will still be excluded from certain sessions and be asked to respect Quaker conventions. >>
Ah yes, “sensitivity.” Yet do the nervous Friends really need to worry? More likely, after all the agonizing, our cousins in Albion are soon to make a very deflating discovery, one quite familiar to Clerks this side of the Atlantic.
They’re about to find out that no matter how highly they still think of themselves as a body, or how important to the world their deliberations may seem, over the latest minute on recycling (for) or the Afghan war (against), the cadres of Fleet Street, except on the rarest of occasions, will likely not care tuppence what the Quakers are up to, for better or for worse.
I just hope they will be able to bear it.
As someone who is not “Middle Class”, I find the idea that an organization that officially recognizes humanity as God’s icon would reject the working class as not good enough deeply disturbing. Are we somewhat less than human, because our work is to enrich someone other than ourselves?
I hope my personal position becomes more comfortable — but from a theological perspective, I cannot see how it should matter. If it is wrong to say ‘sit here at my feet’, is it not more wrong to say — ‘stay outside in darkness’.
— By the way, I quite agree. Invite the press, and they will not come.
Chuck, Britain Yearly Meeting’s decision to approve same-sex marriage,
last year, attracted great interest from the media, and they were de-
manding to be admitted. Thank goodness this is to be allowed.
It seems that every other church in Britain already admits the press
to its proceedings. Many people think that we are a secret society.
I think public misunderstanding of Friends is even greater in the U.S.
However, the U.S. has no yearly meeting as large or as prestigious
as Britain Y.M. Sometimes Friends get media attention even in the
U.S. In 1966, during the Vietnam war, when New York Yearly
Meeting decided to ship civilian medical supplies to all three sides
in that war, this action received front-page coverage in the N.Y.
Times. I believe reporters were present at yearly meeting sessions
then, despite objections. One never knows what the media will pick up on.
The Friend, the British Quaker weekly, which is not an organ
of Britain Y.M. and never has been, has always been allowed to
cover the annual sessions. I think it’s healthy to have yearly
meeting sessions open to the press, as other chuches’ sessions
are. Occasionally, we’ll get some of our best, and some of our
worst and silliest, decisions into the news. Jeremy Mott