
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990                   TAG: 9007180188
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN.                                LENGTH: Short

BAPTISTS FIRE 2 EDITORS FROM NEWS SERVICE

Southern Baptist fundamentalists on Tuesday fired the two editors who shaped the denomination's press agency into a news service respected by many as open and objective.

About 200 of the editors' supporters stood outside singing "Amazing Grace" and other hymns as the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee voted to fire Baptist Press editor Alvin C. Shackleford and news director Dan Martin.

"The last thing the revolutionaries who've taken over the palace want is a free press," Martin said at a news conference. "I think we were fired because they want their own minister of information."

The editors had refused to resign.

- Associated Press

by CNB