Truth in Advertising
I wasn’t asking questions because the ad tempted me, though if I were younger it might. I was asking because a suspicious reader had conducted a Web search and then written us, “It seems this organization is a secular cult whose leader is on trial in Denmark.”
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Michael Durham, a London-based freelance reporter, tells me he’s been covering Tvind since the mid-90s. Three years ago he did a long piece for the London Times, interviewing students from around the world who’d gone to a Tvind school in northern England. One was Gita, a New Zealander, “who enrolled after seeing an ad in a free newspaper.” Puzzled that other students were so uncurious, she told Durham after quitting, “I wondered why no one questioned anything about this mystery organisation that was supposed to send us to Africa to do volunteer work.” Durham described her concerns. “One niggle was that [the school] always seemed short of money, even though most students had paid thousands of pounds upfront and were constantly sent to collect more money on the streets of Hull, Manchester and Liverpool. In fact, the college appeared so poor that it was falling apart, and students were told to carry out repairs. Yet when Gita met senior staff from Denmark they seemed to represent a wealthy organisation.”
Tvindalert.com tries to stay abreast of the trial of Pedersen and other Tvind leaders, which began months ago in Denmark, proceeds in fits and starts, and could drag on, Durham predicts, into 2005. He’s posted an English-language version of the “case summary” accusing the defendants of embezzlement and tax fraud. Pedersen and the others are accused of “misappropriating funds earmarked for public utility (humanitarian) purposes” that instead have gone “to commercial enterprises…which are controlled by the defendants and where the profit…accrued to the defendants.”
Liar! Liar!
Lampinen replies, “I would argue the readers make us a Kane County paper. We have a local edition in Geneva, Saint Charles, and Batavia that’s very successful with readers.”
He goes on, “Sweetwood and Shaw–they throw stones at us from time to time, and I let those things go. They’re within the bounds of promotional zeal. But this isn’t about hyperbole. This is about being honest with readers. This is promotional, competitive overzealousness. I understand the fire that burns in Sweetwood’s heart. I’m impressed with it and I respect it. But this is pressing past the bounds. Mark needs to step back and consider what he’s doing in this case. He needs to ask himself, is this honest? And it’s not.”
