I’ll never forget seeing my first GFE in print. For journalists, few things are more humiliating. A GFE is a mistake—a misspelled name, the wrong number of attendees at a city hall meeting, a misreported batting average. But in journalism, we don’t call it a mistake. It’s a factual error. A Gross Factual Error.
I have several GFEs in my rap sheet. Some have been small and slipped by unnoticed by everyone but myself and my cringing copyeditor. Some have been horrifyingly large, like the time I misspelled someone’s name for an entire article, or when I went to review an Irish Pub for St. Patrick’s Day only to find out from the owner after the article was printed that they are a Scottish Pub. That one still makes me queasy to think about.
Still, to an outsider, the term Gross Factual Error may seem melodramatic. So you got the street name wrong, or the date mixed up—everyone makes mistakes!
But to a journalist, it’s not about the mistake—it’s about our responsibility to the public. Journalists have a platform that most people do not. They hold a public trust. And because of this, they are held to a higher standard of communication. Writing must be clear and accurate. The facts might provoke, but the writing should not.
Journalists get a lot of grief these days—not all of it without reason—but their internal code of ethics is admirable and it is worth noting the principles behind them when we consider alternative media platforms. Read more»
Mary Van Weelden | “‘Provocative Communication’ Isn’t an Excuse for Doug Wilson (And it isn’t for us, either)” | August 27, 2025
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Mary Van Weelden
Mary Van Weelden is Content Manager at Sola Media, a graduate of Westminster Seminary California, a writer, a pastor’s wife, a former journalist, and a recovering taco snob.
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Mary,
In your Substack article you wrote:
“What makes this more egregious is that Doug Wilson is supposed to be held to a higher standard than they are, as someone who holds himself to be an ordained minister.”
Rachel Miller wrote “A Question for Doug Wilson Fans” (see The Aquila Report, Oct 2, 2015) in which she stated: “Doug Wilson is self-ordained….” She then provides Wilson’s own words as to how he became a pastor, as quoted from his Mother Kirk, Canon Press, 2001, 267-268.
Given your wording, i.e., “holds himself to be an ordained minister,” I couldn’t tell if you knew that history.
Since I’m the person whose comment is referenced here, I apologize to Mary for not responding until now. I didn’t see her post until this weekend when it was reposted on the Heidelblog.
Mary and I have both spent many years as reporters (41 for me) so I’m well aware that it’s impossible to quote everything someone says and I don’t like to accuse people of “taking quotes out of context.” That’s often an unfair criticism. So I’ll just provide some additional context from my original post.
I’m trying to explain Wilson’s appeal, and alert people to the problems of his method he uses to appeal to his audience, not so much to defend him. I try to avoid attacking or defending Wilson, who is becoming increasingly important and influential in conservative Christian political circles, apart from affirming the synodical/GA decisions of the major NAPARC denominations on the Federal Vision. On that point, the major confessional Reformed churches have spoken and I think that says what needs to be said better than I could.
Wilson’s method of blunt speech works. It also has consequences. We need to understand why it works and what the consequences will be.
________
Wilson, like the YRR and like AOC, is trying and succeeding in reaching a younger generation of people who were taught to think in sound bites and brief articles, not book-length discussions.
We’re likely to see a lot more people like Wilson in conservative Reformed circles who know how to “play to the audience” and persuade people who are new to the Reformed faith and don’t have decades of experience debating Reformed doctrine.
Methods are not neutral, and abandoning detailed analysis will have an effect on the next generation of Reformed laypeople and leaders.
Again, Doug Wilson knows that and also produces book-length works to defend and explain his ideas, leading to an accusation that he’s using a motte-and-bailey approach, i.e., advocating radical positions and then, when he attracts lots of attention, withdrawing to a better-defended position than his initial provocative statement.
I’m not sure the people who follow either Doug Wilson or the YRRs understand that provocative statements, without a strong foundation in facts, lead to major problems.