Talk:Ted Baehr

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I'm a new user here, and I don't know how to post a "questionable neutrality" tag on this article, but I think that's needed for this piece. I don't think John (the article author) intentionally wrote a biased piece. In fact, I read through all of his other entries and they are all extremely professional. I just think the last section's focus on "controversy" is overdrawn. I've been familiar with Ted Baehr's work for awhile, and to include a substantial section on a three-month controversy in a brief article on someone's twenty-year career seems excessive and inconsistent with peer articles on Wikipedia. I looked up articles on other major cultural critics (Michael Medved, David Horowitz, etc.) who have drawn severe criticism, and I couldn't find anything about controversy. Inherently, cultural critics are controversial and draw tremendous scrutiny from cultural arbiters. But others who are far more controversial than Baehr seem to have escaped a "controversy" section - the impact of which is to color the whole biographical piece in a way that ultimately ignores perspective.

Further, the author states: "It is evident that the CFTC's mission of advocating for Christian-friendly movies affects the objectivity of its analyses." This is pure editorializing born of bias and predisposition. What may be self-evident to John is not self-evident to me, and may be even less self-evident to others. Inserting this kind of opinion as fact is proof yet again that subtle bias invades this piece. The cutting remark about Fox News reveals the same. I don't see what place these have in an encyclopedic piece.

Finally, several areas of this piece are rife with misspelling. While certainly unrelated to a bias error, these mistakes reinforce the idea that this piece was hastily rendered. That might explain its questionable neutrality.

I'll be placing a questionable neutrality tag on this piece as soon as I figure out how to do that. In the meantime, I would urge John to reorient the piece and hopefully address some of my concerns. He seems a professional Wikipedia user, so I look forward to understanding his reasoning.

Contents

[edit] Editor's Response

  • The controversy was my starting point for researching the article. If there are significant parts of Dr. Baehr's career which have been omitted, then you (or anyone else) is invited to contribute to the article.
  • As for the statement, "It is evident that the CFTC's mission of advocating for Christian-friendly movies affects the objectivity of its analyses." I believe this to be a statement of fact drawn from the almost ludicrous analytical shortcomings of the CFTC's annual "Report". I restrained myself from expounding further on those shortcomings because they did not pertain to a biographical article. I stand by my statement as an objective conclusion, but again, other editors are welcome to edit.
  • Yes, I am biased against Baehr's "research". He is an ideologue trying to pass off the junkiest of junk science. The "analytical" technique of the CFTC report is a much better example of "pure editorializing born of bias and predisposition." than this article. That said, I did endeavor to present factual material with as little POV as I could manage. Again, other editors are welcome to edit.
  • Please correct any spelling errors which I have overlooked. Consider contributing to articles rather than merely complaining about them. And also, it is considered good etiquette to sign your posts on discussion pages. Dystopos 18:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Box Office Analysis

I did some math. I took the 20 films mentioned as in the report as having either "strong moral messages" or "promoting anti-moral agendas" and researched their gross domestic box office receipts and their estimated budgets. For several of the "low budget" films no estimate was available through IMDB.com or Box Office Mojo, so I plugged in an arbitrary amount of $2.5 million (which is probably high). The gross box office for the moral films listed was $1,330,814,365, minus an investment of $651,000,000, yields $679,814,365, or $1.04 return for each dollar invested. Performing the same calculation on the "anti-moral" list gives a gross figure of $365,452,473 and a combined budget of $170,300,000 for a net profit of $195,152,473 or $1.15 per dollar invested. Using only the films highlighted in the report, one could draw the conclusion that Hollywood UNDERINVESTS in anti-moral movies and that the public, given the chance, supports these films at a higher rate of return than films with "strong moral messages"

Of course there are a lot of holes in my methodology. The success of "The Passion of the Christ" made 2004 an exceptional year for Christian-friendly film. The calculation of "moral value" for these films is itself suspect. I am a Christian and I have read the Bible more than once. I see more sound biblical messages in anti-capitalist films like "The Motorcycle Diaries" and "The Corporation" than I see in "National Treasure" or "The Aviator". Moral judgments notwithstanding, the report omits six of the top ten grossing films of 2004 (Shrek 2, Meet the Fockers, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Bourne Supremacy, The Polar Express, and Shark Tale) while ferreting out minor films for inclusion on the "anti-moral" list.

Conclusion: The premise that a box-office analysis indicates that Americans prefer movies with "worldviews" that Baehr considers moral is hooey. The CFTC reports are not analysis, they are propaganda to support an avowedly pre-ordained ministerial message. Dystopos 23:57, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wow.

Thank you for so openly admitting your biases. They certainly seem strong in a number of arenas, and I will definately take up your offer to edit and elaborate on the piece.

I will change any remaining spelling errors. There's no reason to get touchy about this. I think we're all working together to develop a stronger and stronger resource in Wikipedia. I think we're all trying to "contribute."

Forgive me for not signing my tag to my opening comment. Again, I am a new user here, so I hope you'll forgive any oversight of etiquette.

javascript:insertTags('--Highbrowcow 22:56, 20 May 2005 (UTC)',,);

  • No problem. Dystopos 04:41, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Biography

Most of the first section of this article was drawn from Baehr's published biography [1]. One paragraph from that biography states:

During his tenure at the University, Baehr worked closely on communications with academia, researching the impact of the media in education. The subject became a primary topic at the Annenberg Conference on Communication at Temple University, where Baehr received national recognition.

In following up on this information (so a citation of the published proceedings could be listed here) I was unable to find any conference by that name. Temple University did sponsor annual "International Conferences on Culture and Communication" since the mid-1970's. I contacted the organizer who told me that selected proceedings from those conferences were published (in house as "Working Papers in Culture and Communication"), but Baehr's research was not among the published work. Furthermore, the conferences at Temple were not supported by the Annenberg School (at neighboring U. Penn) and were national only in the sense that invitations for participation went out nationally. There was no national publication or press covering these events. Therefore I have removed mention of this conference from this article pending verification by others. Dystopos 03:25, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Editing Changes

I haven't been on Wikipedia in forever and never got a chance to rework the article to minimize your admitted non-neutral perspective. I'm making some changes.

I'm going to expand the article and cut some of the perspective elements: "It's obvious that Baehr's opinion affects the objectivity of his analysis" and the jabs against FOXnews, etc.

javascript:insertTags('--Highbrowcow 9 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)',,);

  • For the record, I have admitted that my personal perspective is not neutral, but I have not admitted that my contributions to this article are non-neutral. Nor are they the last word, as your participation demonstrates. Welcome aboard. Dystopos 01:44, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Update on Bio

The following changes were made to the above Biography section by Mretb. The remainder of the section was deleted. I have restored the above section and reproduced the changes here as a record of Mretb's contribution. The original text is in black, and Mretb's edits are in bold red.

During his tenure as President of the Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation, Baehr worked closely on communications with academia, researching the impact of the media in education. The subject became a primary topic on his talk on Televison and Realtiy[sic] at the April 9, 1981 Conference on Culture and Communication convened by Dr. Stewart Hoover at Temple University, where Baehr received national recognition.
Baehr's research was published by the Episcopal Radio-TV foundartion[sic].

[edit] CT did not issue a retraction

  • David Neff, editor of Christianity Today has responded specifically to the question of whether a retraction of Allen's article was issued by the magazine:

In its May 2004 issue, CT printed in its “Readers Write” department a letter from Pat Boone defending Ted Baehr against allegations in the March 2004 article that was cited by the Wikipedia editor. In the same issue, we published a one-page response to the article by the editorial staff of Ted Baehr’s Movieguide. In the editor’s note introducing that response, we explained that CT stood by its report and continued to be concerned about the conflict-of-interest issues raised in it.

CT never published any retraction. It did, however, on advice of its attorney, remove from the web the electronic version of the article’s sidebar, which dealt with the conflict of interest questions. Perhaps that is what the source of the Wikipedia article intended by the word “retraction.”

David Neff • editor & vice-president

I have therefore removed reference to a "retraction issued within three months" from this article. --Dystopos 21:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 5 of the 6

  • There's a conflation of ideas in this section. To my knowledge, Movieguide has never chosen films based on box office. Movieguide chooses films based on their moral content. Year and year again, moral movies happen to also be good perfomers at the box office (a fact which is not odd considering you can sell 6 tickets to a family for a family film, and only 1 or 2 tickets to a niche group (a teenager, etc.) for a non-family film).

Additionally, this section implies that bad performers alone are calculated into the annual report to the industry. This is equally untrue. All 250-300 films released on the big-screen in a calander year are calculated into the annual report (inluding your group of '5 out of 6') and the numbers still come out in Movieguide's favor.

    • Also, King Kong was not one of the top six performers for 2005. The sixth best performing film in 2005 was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at $206,459,076. King Kong came in at number 13 with $174,559,825.
  • I was using the "2005 Domestic Grosses" from this site, which lists King Kong at number 5 with a gross of $218,080,025. It would be appropriate to use whatever source is used by Movieguide, so if King Kong is 13th by that accounting, that's fine - we would just need to cite the source.
As to the point at hand, I was under the impression that Movieguides calculations only factored in the movies cited. It may be informative to better summarize their method. Is there a way for me to get a copy of the full report without paying the $40 subscription? My local public library does not carry Movieguide.
But truly, It is not our place to criticize or re-analyze CFTVC's methodology here, except as such criticism may be reported by others. If you feel that the entire section should be deleted, or replaced by a much shorter summary, I will consent. --Dystopos 15:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conflated Page

  • This page seems to be a conflation of two topics: 1) Ted Baehr and 2) the CFTVC. While CFTVC seems to be by far the central participant in this topic, Ted Baehr is still listed as the article's focus. In the interest of clarity and consistency (and integrity?), the article should be renamed or divided in two, no?--70.38.144.49 15:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I tend to agree. There is, in my opinion, a strong need to accurately and fairly discuss Baehr's work, and substantive criticism of it, in a biography. The details about the report, which initially drew me into the topic, would really only be relevant insofar as they reflect on him personally, which is probably not much. I would therefore support developing a separate article for Movieguide or for the Annual Report. --Dystopos 15:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yellow Journalism

  • The phrase you keep deleting about "yellow journalism" is a part of Pat Boone's accusation. Pleasant or not, does it not have as much "right" to page-space as the comment by some unkown ethicist in Tennessee?
    • Both items appeared in-print in CT.
    • In my editorial opinion it is Boone's right to use inflammatory language, but it is not Wikipedia's responsibility to repeat it. --Dystopos 16:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] V for Vendetta

His views on the movie V for Vendetta are wrong. He isn't Christian. V for Vendetta is a film based on a graphic novel which has a underlying message FOR freedom, which is approved by Christianity. --69.67.234.220 20:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I don't think it's appropriate for Wikipedia to adopt a point of view on Baehr's christianity or the degree to which his subjective criticisms correspond with Christian teachings. --Dystopos 21:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
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