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Week of 10 September 2004 · Vol. VIII, No. 2
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Boston Globe: Barnstorming good PR

Bobby Welch, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, probably spoke to deaf ears recently in Newton, Mass., when his cross-country proselytizing bus tour hit the overwhelmingly liberal Jewish and Catholic community. But observers say that the Florida pastor, who is known for his positivity and nonconfrontational style, might help soften the image of the Southern Baptist Church, which has become notorious for its hard-line stands on such issues as gender and sexuality. Southern Baptists “have been the architects of their own negative image, on the gamble that the very people who see it as negative aren’t hot prospects anyway, and others will be attracted by that message,” says Nancy Ammerman, an STH professor, in the September 2 Boston Globe. “This bus tour is a kind of tacit acknowledgment that they have been getting publicity for the wrong things.”

Boston Herald: Get your eyes checked

The outrage leveled at Olympic judges by fans last month in Athens was remarkable, even causing 11th-hour scoring changes in the gymnastics high-bar routines. Is it possible that sports fans, in an age of computer-enhanced television replay, expect too much of judges who score subjective events like gymnastics? No, Olympic judges have actually gotten worse, according to Leonard Zaichkowsky, an SED professor of developmental studies and counseling. “The judging used to be much more predictable,” he says in the August 26 Boston Herald. “For the judges, much like the athletes, it’s a pressure-packed situation. And like athletes, they can succumb to pressure.”

Denver Post: Learn to share

As part of an effort to improve counterterrorism investigations, the FBI has added personnel in its field offices across the country. But Art Hulnick, a College of Arts and Sciences associate professor of international relations and a former CIA analyst, says that in order to successfully fight terrorism, the bureau needs to fix a deep-seated culture of secret-keeping. “One of the problems that the FBI has is that the agents who essentially run the organization are cops,” says Hulnick in the Denver Post on September 7. “They have a police mentality. The idea is that success is how many people you put in jail, and that’s got to change.”

       

10 September 2004
Boston University
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