"Among the study's key findings:That last point is important. The media tends to portray American religious expression as this huge divide between religious conseratieves and "secular liberals." This study and many others suggest what most of us suspect--that most Americans are in fact somewhere in the middle and probably share more in common.
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.
Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts."
Fred, from slacktivist adds:
"True enough, but my bigger pet peeve is the way that religious leaders with fringe views are treated as mainstream. Journalists and TV hosts with little knowledge of the religious traditions these folks say they represent tend to take at face value whatever claims they make. Thus, for example, Tim LaHaye is able, time after time, to make the unchallenged assertion that Left Behind simply presents 'what Christians believe' or 'what the Bible teaches.'"
4 comments:
I guess I get a totally different take on this. From what I observe, the media quoting conservative vs. progressives seems more to do with sensationalism and fitting in with what some in the media view as 'Christians.' Morons like Phelps get far more stories than all the progressives combined (I am guessing here). I have a friend that is an editor for a Christian publisher. She always rolls her eyes when she goes to some major event and the reporters will flock to the biggest weirdo there.
It would be nice of they made some attempt to protray the depth of viewpoints in Christianity. Do you honestly believe it is the result of some anti-liberal bias in the media?
No, not anti-liberal bias, simply suggesting that the myth of the liberal media is problematic.
btw, steve, I agree about the media. I think they focus on the extremes and not the mainstream.
But I am not necessarily alleging some kind of conspiracy either. I suspect that many of the media people sometimes worry that they might be perceived as liberal and so they go out of their way to present the conservative side. What is problematic about that is that it has created a lot of conservative bias, and also the sometimes false sense that there are always two sides to every issue, or more problematic, that the conservative side is always a legitimate counter to whatever the liberal side is.
I know we have had the media bias discussiion before, so I won't rehash it. I don't think the liberal bias is a myth, but I do think it is blown way out of proportion by some conservatives. I also think that any bias is more related to specific issues, as opposed to any general anti-conservatism and there are certainly news sources that are biased to the conservative side.
I don't know if there is anything that can be done or even should be done. I think people need to accept the fact that news will be biased to some degree and counter the bias by getting news from multiple sources.
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