I really feel like my love for sports hurts my nerd credibility. I should probably listen to nerdier podcasts, but I'm too busy listening to sports talk radio and shows about the NBA. My love for sports, though, led to The Christian Nerd's most popular post this year. This post is definitely about sports, but it also has a strong focus on social media and clickbait. This year I wrote a lot about social media and clickbait; with the coming election this year, I don't really see that changing.
Just kidding. I don’t think the NBA hates Christianity. Unfortunately there’s a lot of clickbait drivel out there that would make you think differently.
My friend, James, brought to my attention this article. The headline on Facebook reads, “The NBA Told Him ‘Don’t Mention Jesus’, Stephen Curry’s Response Silenced Them All.” The headline is a lie. The NBA never told Steph Curry not to mention Jesus. The article doesn’t provide any source for its claim nor does the article have much to do with the headline.
The article is bad journalism at best, and outright dishonest at worst. What better way to drive traffic to a site than to make outrageous claims of dubious veracity? William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer would feel right at home with Qpolitical as its journalistic integrity is shaded yellow.
I also doubt Qpoltical’s integrity because the author of the article seems to use a pen name. The author of the article is listed as “Ronak Kallianpur,” but the author’s page address is “qpolitical.com/author/emma.” I would like to find this Emma and ask her a few questions.
- Why are you a bad journalist?
- Do you feel like it’s OK to lie?
- Do you feel like your lack of credibility could negatively impact Steph Curry’s actual credibility?
- Steph Curry uses his platform to celebrate his faith and his family. Does that make you feel bad about using your platform to tell lies in order to get more clicks?
I love Steph Curry because he is an amazing basketball player and led my favorite team to an NBA championship. I love him even more, though, because he seems like a genuine person with an authentic faith in Jesus who loves his family. In the four years I have been a fan of his, I have seen him live out that faith in genuine ways. He doesn’t need an article built on lies to proclaim his faith.
What’s most discouraging is that there are over 1,000 Facebook comments on this story. Most are well-meaning people supporting Steph’s stand against the evil of the NBA. It seems like most of them didn’t take the time to actually read the article and see that it’s built upon lies and bad journalism. They just saw the headline in their feed, left a comment or a like, and moved on.
I’m all for supporting people who speak out about their faith, but as Christians we can do that without drumming up fake persecution. Steph Curry’s faith stands on its own and now God has given him an amazing opportunity to share it. He has been faithful in the opportunities that he had and now he is being given even greater opportunities. That is worth admiring, but we can do that without sensationalist, clickbait headlines.
Perhaps part of our faithfulness is avoiding clickbait headlines and being more thoughtful about our faith. We need to take our faith seriously, which means not wasting time on worthless stories that in the end only hurt an authentic faith.
How much do you hate clickbait headlines?
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