Religious Leaders React To Media Matters Report
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
As mentioned on this site earlier today, Media Matters for America has released a new study that noted:
- 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.
Reaction to this new study has come from many different progressive Christian leaders and organizations.
Faith in Public Life released a statement with the following comments:
"The overwhelming presence in the news media of conservative religious voices leads to the false implication that to be religious is to be conservative, and worse, that to be progressive is to lack faith or even to be against faith. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “People of faith have long been, and will continue to be, active leaders on progressive causes for justice. Our faith compels it.”
“I have long felt the media have given Americans a distorted view of what people of faith believe. This research from Media Matters proves that. I hope both the print and electronic media in this country will now seek the balance so many of them profess to have as they continue to report issues of religion and its impact on our society, government, and the American culture,” said Rev. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA.
“The media have a vital responsibility to represent the fullness of Catholic social teaching in what needs to be a broad and rich debate about the role of religion in public life,” said Alexia Kelley, Executive Director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. “Catholic leaders who speak to the moral dimensions of an unjust war, the dignity of the human person, the growing gap between rich and poor, and global warming, speak from the heart of our Catholic faith. They must not be routinely passed over for strident commentary from culture warriors.”
“This report clearly indicates what we've always suspected -- that the media prefer to see the world through a simple lens, a casualty of which is that the right and the conservative voice can often take control of the conversation,” said Rev. Dr. Jim Forbes, host of the Air America program The Time Is Now. “So what do we do now? Those of us on who call ourselves progressives need to speak out and be heard.”
"Unfortunately, much of the secular and religious media are stuck in the habit of secular-left/religious-right bipolar reporting, and they're failing to see that the religious and political landscape isn't that simple anymore, if it ever was," said Brian McLaren, Board Chairman for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
The absence of mainline and progressive religious voices was the entire reason I started this blog in 2003. We need to have our voice heard. People like Pat Robertson don't represent the majority of Christians but you'd have a hard time making television producers and newspaper editors understand that. Those of us in the progressive religious community need to be aggressive in courting the press - not just on a national level but in our local communities where many of the most important issues play out.