August 11 1997

ARTICLE TOOLS

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The ongoing conflict between Zondervan Publishing House and Worldintensified in July when a three-member Evangelical Press Association(EPA) ad hoc panel scolded the magazine for poor journalism.

Asked by Zondervan Publishing House and the International Bible Society(IBS) to investigate the dispute, EPAimpaneled the special committee.

The ethics panel said the magazine engaged in a one-sided "set-up job" whenit reported on moves to revise the New International Version(NIV) Bible using "inclusive language." The committee's reportwas unofficial until the EPA board considered the findingsat a meeting in late July(www.ChristianityToday.com/ct/archives).

World's March 29 cover story by Susan Olasky reported thatNIV translators are quietly conspiring to sneak feministideology into evangelical churches by toying with pronouns and other genderreferences in Scripture. World's continuing coverage sparked a firestorm,prompting Zondervan and the Colorado Springs-based IBS, whichowns the copyright to the version, to scrap plans to introduce a new,"gender-neutral" NIV in the United States. An inclusiveNIV is already in circulation in England(CT, June 16, 1997, p. 52).

PANEL'S REPORT: The EPA asks its members toadhere to a four-point code of ethics. Magazines are urged to avoid "distortionand sensationalism" and to "be conscious of their duty to protect the goodname and reputation of others."

The three members of the ad-hoc EPA ethics committee—Wheaton College journalismprofessor Mark Fackler, Washington, D.C.-based author Beth Spring, and Universityof Missouri-Columbia, Washington Reporting Program director WesPippert—chastised Olasky for using "inflammatory language" and "slanted,first-person editorializing" to suggest that translators ...