Wednesday, April 07, 2004

(AgapePress) - 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. More...