April 6, 2004
This likely comes as no surprise to most believers, but the mainstream media's presentation of Christianity is seldom offered in a positive light. The "left" or "liberal" view of the faith tends to be given more credibility and the "conservative" interpretation often gets short shrift. Interestingly, the ABC network -- which offered up another biased "Jesus" special on Monday night -- admits to such bias.
Television coverage of religious issues is up sharply compared to a year ago -- that according to a study from the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog. A study released on Monday finds the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts did 303 stories on religion during the 12 months that ended March 1, compared with 121 stories during a one-year period in 1993.
The report finds the increase was due to Mel Gibson's box-office smash The Passion of the Christ and the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's reign as well as coverage of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, the struggle over a Ten Commandments monument in an Alabama courthouse and controversies over homosexual ministers.
Still, study author Tim Graham has complaints with the way many religious stories are reported. The group says the networks are often hostile to orthodox faiths and use mostly liberal religious scholars. He says believers "get excited" to see that religion is more in the news -- but that when secular biases appear in the reporting, they ask if it is really such a good thing.
Two pro-family groups are asking that exact question regarding ABC's Monday night broadcast of Jesus and Paul -- The Word and the Witness, a three-hour special hosted by Peter Jennings. According to the American Family Association. the program presented "expert" analysis from liberal theologians and carried an underlying worldview of distrust in scripture and Jesus' divinity.
"ABC-TV was unwilling to present a scriptural concept of Jesus, choosing to give a distorted view with the impression that the New Testament cannot be trusted," AFA says on its website. "Since (in their view) no reputable scholar trusts the New Testament, ABC elected to present modern day 'theologians' whom they portray as more knowledgeable and trustworthy to debunk the New Testament account."
Focus on the Family criticizes ABC for choosing Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, to "attack the legitimacy of the literal interpretation of the Scriptures" and to try to "reduce the Word of God to myths." A spokesman for Focus says Jennings, who hosted a previous ABC special titled The Search for Jesus, was not successful in hiding his personal biases.
"Jennings repeatedly refers to 'the Jesus movement' as if it were just another political party or faction," Tom Neven says. "They also pit Paul against Jesus, as if the apostle taught things that contradicted Jesus, and some refer to Paul as 'the founder of Christianity.'"
American Family Association has contacted its supporters, asking them to voice their disapproval of ABC's biased reporting, labeling it as another example of the network's "disrespect for the Christian faith."
A Not-So-Shocking Revelation
In a fairly stunning admission earlier this year, an ABC News column on its website stated that the U.S. media leans left on a number of critical political and cultural issues.
"The Note," which declares itself on the site to be from the "ABC News political unit," posted its thoughts in a February 9 column, admitting: "Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections."
What are those biases? "They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the [accepted positions], while more conservative positions are 'conservative positions,'" the column said.
In late 2001, Bernard Goldberg, a 28-year veteran at CBS and a winner of six Emmy Awards during his career, criticized the news media in his best-selling book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Goldberg said that his experience at CBS demonstrated that the media is biased against conservatives and Christians.
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Associated Press and AFA Journal contributed to this story.
Media Research Center (http://www.mrc.org)
American Family Association (http://www.afa.net)
Focus on the Family (http://www.family.org)
© 2004 Agape Press.
