No other event in 1926 rated the publicity accorded by the media to the kidnapping on May 18 of Aimee Semple McPherson, Pastor of Angelus Temple, and her escape thirty-nine days later and subsequent reappearance on June 26. Many from the press and from the law did their utmost to discredit her story of the ordeal.
Millions assumed, “I know it's true because read it in the newspapers.” However, in 1926 and even now, what the media presents as truth often “ain't necessarily so.” Journalist Henry Fairlie admitted this openly in a Washington Post syndication: “News is not what has happened; it is not ‘the way it is.’ It is an account of what a few people, journalists like myself, think has happened. Out of what we think has happened we select and elaborate, and we provide each day what is called the news. This is our job: to make the news up. That may sound like a shocking confession. It is, in fact, the only honourable description of journalism. We are engaged in ‘making up’ stories about the little we know of what goes on in the world.” (October 11, 1976)
Few clearer examples exist of “making up” stories out of what journalists “think has happened” than the media’s rehashing of the career of Foursquare-dom’s founder, and especially in connection with her 1926 kidnapping.
The purpose of this book is to relate the kidnapping events as they actually happened, the reporting of same, and the subsequent grand jury and preliminary hearing. Over twenty-five years of diligent research have been involved in producing this accurate account of what took place.
Raymond L. Cox, Th.D., F.R.G.S., Author Salem, Oregon