By: Dave Astor The Tennessean of Nashville would not distribute New Testaments with its newspaper if asked by the International Bible Society, an executive at the paper told E&P.
Nashville and at least three other cities were reported to be on the wish list of the society, which paid The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colo., to include New Testaments in plastic bags with Sunday's edition, received by more than 90,000 home subscribers. (See yesterday's E&P Online
story).
[
SEE UPDATE, DEC. 22: "
On Second Thought, Maybe 'The Tennessean' Would Distribute Bibles."]
"We have not been contacted, but, from what we know about it, we would turn it down," said Kelly Harville, vice president of strategic planning and new media at the Tennessean. She explained that the newspaper has guidelines saying the material it distributes must be "secular and nonpolitical."
A Colorado Springs Independent story last week said the bible society might also seek to distribute New Testaments in Nashville, Denver, Seattle, and Santa Rosa, Calif. So E&P contacted the dailies in those four cities.
Officials in Denver and Seattle said they're not aware of their papers being approached by the society and would wait until it happens, if it does, before making a decision.
"We'd have to see the product to determine if it matched our acceptance guidelines," said Mike Lemke, senior vice president of sales and marketing at the Seattle Times Co., which represents the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, too.
Jim Nolan -- director of communications for the Denver Newspaper Agency, which publishes The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News -- also declined to speculate on how the agency would react if it was contacted by the bible society.
The director of marketing at The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif., could not be reached for comment today.
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