The LA Times has a wonderful commentary today by Jack Hitt, “Jesus Was No GOP Lobbyist.” Hitt, points out that the media, television particularly has played heavily into the selling of Christianity as a Republican PAC.
When the pope died, CNN's Wolf Blitzer introduced former Clinton aide Paul Begala and right-wing pundit Robert Novak this way: "Bob is a good Catholic; I'm not so sure about Paul Begala." At the bottom of the screen, CNN ran an informative factoid for the audience: "Many Catholic doctrines are conservative."
Here lies the problem with media hacking for right wing, rather than reporting unbiased news. Who is or is not a “good Catholic” is not to be judged by the likes of Wolf Blitzer, nor any representative of the media for that matter. This is not reporting the news; it is shoving personal opinions down the throats of Americans.
Broadcast media prefer to cast Christianity in the role of "right-wing values PAC" because it is so neat and tidy. They do not much like even to say the name Jesus on air because then we might have to talk about his ideas. "Evangelical Christianity" is much simpler because you can treat it as just another special-interest group, like the Teamsters or the neocons.
Read the rest
Technorati Tag: politics; religion
No comments:
Post a Comment