Media Bias in America
"And that's the way it is(n't)"
By Loren Mitchell
3/91
You are from a large city in America. You haven't attended church in years and claim no particular religious affiliation.
You don't believe in God but you do hold lots of other beliefs - such as a woman's "right" to an abortion, and homosexuality is okay, and gays should be allowed to teach in public schools, and capitalism is dangerous and evil.
You voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1960, including McGovern in 1972. A registered Democrat, you campaigned with Gary Hart, and Mondale-Ferraro and you worked in the White House when Jimmy Carter was president.
Your heroes are Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem and Ted Kennedy. You rank Castro and Daniel Ortega above Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell. You favor nuclear disarmament, affirmative action, hiring homosexuals, government redistribution of wealth and gun laws. You oppose school prayer, capital punishment, defense spending and aid to anti-communist forces.
You are a self-described "liberal," rabidly anti-Christian and pathetically out of touch with the mainstream. Yet oddly enough, that mainstream looks to you each day for information!
Who are you?
You are a reporter.
Or, maybe a TV anchorman. You work for a major daily newspaper, or perhaps a magazine, or one of the networks. You write for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Newsweek, or TIME.
The organization you work for gives millions of dollars for such groups as the National Organization for Women (NOW), People for the American Way, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.
The company you work for is among the handful of organizations based in Washington or New York that are responsible for generating every single national news story in America. You, and other anti-American, anti-Christian liberals have the eyes and ears and hearts of the American public. America trusts you.
Evidence of Media Bias
Through a series of nine polls, most of which were conducted by outside sources, the editors of a new book, And That's the Way it Is(n't) by Bozell and Baker, have examined the political beliefs of those working for the major media.
What do Reporters Believe?
The 1981 Lichter-Rothman study surveyed political attitudes and voting patterns of 240 journalists working for such major media as The New York Times, the Washington Post, US News and World Report, the Wall Street Journal and all the networks. Key findings included:
* 90 percent favored abortion.
* 80 percent supported affirmative action.
* 81 percent voted Democratic in every election from
1964-72.
* Most blamed the U.S. for Third World poverty.
An excerpt from that study says journalists emerge "as strong supporters of environmental protection, affirmative action, women's rights, homosexual rights, and sexual freedom in general.
Liberal Sources
Not surprisingly, these journalists turn to liberal individuals and organizations as supposedly independent sources for news reports. Leftwing congressmen, Ralph Nader, various anti-nuclear groups, Jane Fonda ... these are just a few of the sources considered credible by the media elite.
Bozell and Baker present a 1985 poll by the Los Angeles Times which produced results supporting the Lichter-Rothman findings. The bottom line is that America's newsrooms are liberal hotbeds far out of step with the American public.
And, in The Future?
Things may get worse. An excerpt from a Lichter-Rothman study published in the Washington Journalism Review states, "If today's media elite is one of the most liberal, anti-establishment groups in American society - politically alienated from traditional values and institutions - tomorrow's media elite is likely to be more so. That is what our survey of Columbia University School of Journalism students revealed."
The survey of media elite and future reporters found:
* More than 80 percent of each group seldom or never
attend religious services.
* Less than eight percent attend church regularly and
nearly half claim no religious affiliation.
The Real Conflict
There was a time when the nation's leading newspapers took seriously the Kingship of Jesus Christ, when Monday's edition included lengthy reports on Sunday's sermons. Many fail to recognize that the hideous profile of the modern media is the direct result of its wholesale rejection of Christ.
While presenting the media conflict as a liberal vs. conservative issue, we might fail to realize that the good and evil are not represented by opposing ends of the political spectrum. The nation's press are wretched and evil because they are anti-Christian, not because they are liberal and Democratic.
As John Lofton states: "The Lord considers equally reprehensible any humanistic agenda that denies His authority and rule. The Bible - not the Republican platform is the standard by which we must judge the mass media."
Perhaps surprising to some, there is much that can be done to not only counter but reverse the disturbing trends documented by Bozell and Baker. Consider what can be done:
The Solution
First and foremost, individuals must commit their whole lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that we will study the Bible to find out what it says about affirmative action, national defense, and economics. God is the author of all truth, therefore to understand events accurately we must must learn a Biblical worldview.
The same holds true for reporting the news. The news is not fair and accurate as long as it comes from a reporter or an organization holding to an anti-Christian worldview.
We must immediately cease listening to the counsel of the wicked. God's word clearly prohibits and condemns such activities, yet the large percentage of Christians in America each day take counsel from the networks and the daily newspaper.
If you depend on any of the major print or broadcast media as a primary source of information, then you are allowing your understanding of world events to be molded by servants of Satan. There are only two kingdoms - Christ's and Satan's - and the majority of the media is clearly in the latter.
The necessity of alternative news sources has never been greater. Start subscribing now. Such alternatives are available, you just have to look a little harder to find them.
Sadly, the major media is entirely non-Christian. There is not one major daily or even a single network that applies God's biblical principles to the media. This must change. Products which are indispensable to the worldly reader or viewer yet founded on distinctly Christian principles must be financed. This will take money, time and commitment - but let's get started!
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