CHURCHMEN AS NEWS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30388, 12 March 1964, Page 9

CHURCHMEN AS NEWS

‘Sober, Kind, Square’ (N.ZJv^.-Keuter—CopyripM) BRISTOL, Mar. 10. Sober, kind, honest, “square” and almost entirely sexless —that is how priests and ministers are reflected by the popular press, the secretary of the Church of England Radio and Television Council (the Rev. David Skinner) said today in Bristol. “No amount of guitar playing and twisting in cassocks will alter that image.” he told newly-ordained Anglican, Roman Catholic and Free Church clergy attending a twoday confere ce on the press and mass communication.

Mr Skinner, formerly a sub-editor of the “Daily Mirror,” said the chief subeditors on popular newspapers would be attracted to the sort of news about the church that they knew would interest their leaders.

It was the unusual, the tragic, the incongruous that made news. A visitor from another planet would gather the impression from the popular newspapers that the clergy were normally a kindly, goodhearted compassionate group of men, even if somewhat re-

mote from the earthly concerns of the people. The image of the church which the popular press reflected was sympathetic and charitable. “The clergy themselves emerge in a pure if somewhat dim light,” he said. The clergy appeared as men who were “a real help when you have a death or an illness in the family,” he added.