In this presentation, Dr Smith will examine an experiment that captured the attention of the world. The Rev. Charles M. Sheldon, often cited for his “What Would Jesus Do?” question, took over a daily American newspaper—the Daily Capital in Topeka, Kansas (USA)—in 1900 to demonstrate how a mainstream newspaper should read if it were committed to privileging Christ as the editor. Readers from around the globe obtained copies of the experiment, which included front-page sermons, along with news free from political references or anything that Sheldon considered ungodly. Sheldon used his best-selling novel, In His Steps, as a blueprint for his model newspaper. The key to Sheldon’s experiment was his counter-cultural approach to editing a mainstream newspaper.
Smith will use Bormann’s symbolic convergence theory to identify the ways in which Sheldon’s work spoke to Christians hungry for an alternative to the Western approach to publishing, characterized by a kind of scientific, positivism-driven examination of the facts. Sheldon’s short-lived experiment didn’t catch on in the United States or elsewhere, but it served as a strong attempt to reform a press that ignores a desire to understand the spiritual as well as the material world.
Dr Smith is a renowned author and adjunct professor of journalism at Olivet University. He was formerly Professor of Journalism at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania and also taught at Regent University in the USA. He spent a decade writing for mainstream newspapers including USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Baltimore Sun.
