Where’s the story?

A bishop defending the religious sanctity of Christmas laughed as BBC’s morning news presenters Sian Williams and Bill Turnbull tried to pigeon hole him as a Scrooge and carol hater. Armed with quotes from the bishop’s book, BBC reporters, who had a sketchy understanding of the book’s argument accused the bishop, Rt Rev Nick Baines, of trying to take the joy out of Christmas.

Althought the chastising was playful(painfully so) the bishop was pitted against a carol loving musical aficionado to whip up a good argument.

I was suddenly disappointed to see the journalistic Story Hunting cogs on such shameless display. The bishop has written a book inspired by his experience of the kids in Croydon (his diocese) who thought Christmas was a celebration of Santa Claus. Quite rightfully he has attempted to shed some light on the origins of  what has now become a commercially driven mayhem full of magical creatures such as Santa.

In the book he says: “I can understand the little children being quite taken with the sort of baby of whom it can be said, ‘no crying he makes’, but how can any adult sing this without embarrassment?” This makes the distinction between fact and fiction which, in the wider context of the book, is what the bishop is trying to do.

But this wasn’t really what Sian and John wanted the Rt Rv Baines to try to explain. They wanted a  carol-hating, furry-vest-wearing piece of journalistic cannon fodder.