Who Matters in the Media, Media Matters?
Brock's Group is Shocked By Conservative Christian Overcoverage
By Hunter Baker Posted in Culture — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
* Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.
* On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.
* In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.
Read on . . .
If you want to get to the heart of the matter, check out the data set:
The religious conservatives analyzed were James Dobson, William Donohue, Gary Bauer, Charles Colson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, Ted Haggard, T.D. Jakes, Richard Land, Tom Minnery, Joel Osteen, Rod Parsley, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, Rick Warren and Wendy Wright. The religious liberals analyzed were Tony Campolo, Joan Chittister, Robert Edgar, Jim Forbes Jr., C. Welton Gaddy, Jesse Jackson, Michael Lerner, Brian McLaren, David Saperstein, Al Sharpton, John H. Thomas and Jim Wallis. (This excerpt by way of Get Religion)
Without going into too much detail, I think we can resolve this apparent inequity. Group one dwarfs group two in terms of radio listeners, book sales, conference attendees, television viewers, and probably in funding by individuals (as opposed to the corporate graft Jackson and Sharpton get). Is it just possible that the media quotes group one because that's where the influence is in terms of American Christianity?
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Who Matters in the Media, Media Matters? 9 Comments (0 topical, 9 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
That's just what I was going to say.
And what about Conservative vs. Progressive? Why don't they just go all the way and say Knuckle Draggers vs. Progressive.
You can tell that bunch is a Hillary brain-child.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
The "progressive Christian community" is tiny.
Complaining about their exposure as opposed to the conservative Christian community is about like complaining about the relative exposure between conservative black activists and liberal black activists....or, even better, the relative exposure between conservative environmentalists and liberal environmentalists.
There are conservative environmentalists out there -- and ones who are politically active. But you'll never see one of them used for a news story....because "environmentalist" means left-wing. And that's not without reason. Most environmentalists are left-wing.
It's not as if Jim Wallis has some major following behind him. So why should the media make it appear that he does?
Seeing as how the progressive perspective is over represented by the vast majority of media.
Many time the media loves to quote conservative Christians in order to demonize them. They will pull quotes out of context or selectively quote only the outrageous stuff. Not all attention is good.
There is also a general bias against Christians so they are reluctant to quote anything with which they agree. Because they are more likely to agree with liberals they are less likely to quote them.
For example, they counted the number of times Republicans were mentioned or interviewed in the news as against Democrats in the past six years and tried to use that as proof that that the media is biased to the Right.
Of course, they neglected to make note of the fact that since the Administration is a Republican Administration, and that the American system of government is not like the British, interviewing the Secretary of State or Defense necessarily means that the person interviewed will definitely be a Republican and there won't be a Democratic Shadow Secretary to stand on the other side.
Other times, they counted mentions of people like Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Mark Foley ... situations in which the Republicans being mentioned were not being mentioned in favorable ways to them or to the party. I notice that they counted mentions of Ted Haggard so I'm pretty certain they've continued this dishonest practice in this "study".
And who's willing to bet that they didn't count mentions of Jerry Falwell's name when the news simply was that he'd died? In other words, one should take every single thing published by Media Matters with two shovels of salt. For all that they like to shriek at people for what they consider misinformation, they engage in it with no apology or hesitation.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
The rules needn't apply to them, since they're working for the common good, of course. Sort of like how carbon emissions will really go down if Algore can use his private jet enough times to see enough people and convince them to give up their cars.
... a group that is very lefty. In this case, they are making a case to why we need the "Fairness Doctrine". That is a central pillar to silencing the center right in the talk radio world...
"Wubbies World" - MSgt, U.S. Air Force (Retired): "Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know." -Jer 33:3-
Considering how large "group one" is compared to "group two," I'm thinking that group two might be overrepresented.