So why a few religious conservatives dominated the news, while religious liberals have been left in the shadows? For starters, conservative groups have been growing in size and power, while liberal groups _ especially mainline Protestant churches _ have lost millions of members. Journalists pay special attention to groups that they believe are gaining power.
Journalists also focus on trends that they consider strange, bizarre and even disturbing. Certainly, one of the hottest news stories in the past quarter century of American life has been the rise of the religious right and its political union with the Republican Party. For many elite journalists, this story has resembled the vandals arriving to sack Rome.
One of the nation’s top religion writers heard an even more cynical theory to explain this evidence that journalists seem eager to quote conservatives more than liberals when covering religion news.
“Personally, I think there’s much truth to what the study claims,” said Gary Stern of the Journal News in Westchester, N.Y., in a weblog post.
“But why? Some progressive religious leaders have told me one theory: that media people are anti-religion, so they trot out angry, self-righteous, conservative voices who make all religion look bad.”
“media people are anti-religion, so they trot out angry, self-righteous, conservative voices who make all religion look bad.”
I think that’s true, to a point. I’m not sure how much of an agenda is present, though. I think that the media is largely anti-religion, but also largely ignorant of religion. So, when they see angry, self-righteous conservatives, the media honestly thinks that those voices perfectly reflect the true nature of religious people.
i agree rolling eyes – the US media equates belief in jesus with angry, judging white men
Not since gay-affirming white woman KJS became PB of the ECUSA/TEC! All you need do is follow the ECUSA/TEC and you can have oodles of angry, judging white lesbigay women too (and the occasional nonwhite lesbigay and the occasional white gay man). There have been plenty of angry, judging gay supporting white men too. There’s a whole House of them. Just check out their reflections from their March no-decision meeting.
Obviously, no one pays attention to the ECUSA/TEC anymore! Sheesh!
I agree, it is important to remember that the ‘media’ consists of a large number of individulas who are not active in religious communities. Years ago listening to the media cover the pope’s death, I was shocked that there was no one working for them who knew what was going on.
I also believe that once someone is cited as a source they tend to be called on again and again. The local paper here calls on me for the “conservative slant” any time TEC makse the news.
There’s much more than bias involved. People with conviction are more interesting to quote than lukewarm Laodiceans. And insofar as reappraisers echo secular culture, they’re that much less noteworthy.
I think #1’s comment that the media people are largely ignorant of religion is on target. They have a few stereotypes and a few stray scraps of doctrine in their minds, and when a major religious story comes up, they fail to represent it accurately because they really don’t understand what’s going on.