Secular humanism became a dominating force in the media after the mid-1960s. There is ample evidence of left-leaning journalists using many tricks of the trade to portray Christian ideas as unwise and at odds with “the people.” And in the mainstream media, it is all too common to see pack journalism promoting cynicism toward Christianity. Thirty years ago, data showed how the state of journalism was bad news for Christianity. Today it is actually worse.
Every year as Easter approaches, various media outlets tackle the topic of the Christian holiday. The mindless chatter about Easter bunnies and egg hunts seems pretty harmless. Stories promoting some form of atheism are another matter.
But first, what do media elites believe? Thirty years ago the Christian Century (no friend to conservative Christianity) presented some of the results of a study of news media elites. The survey by professors S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman (CT, March 12, 1982) found that 86 percent of journalists seldom or never went to a weekly church or synagogue service. Indeed, only 8 percent attended weekly services. These editors and reporters (print and television) consistently voted for the Democratic Party. They also said they “oppose government regulation of sexual activities, uphold a pro-choice position on abortion, and reject the notion that homosexuality is wrong.” For the majority of those interviewed, adultery was not wrong.
On the topic of biblical truths, it is striking how the media has worsened in the past 30 years. As one example, there is the CBC, Canada’s state broadcaster (Canadians pay for the CBC through their taxes). In recent months, Radio-Canada, CBC’s French wing, offered free pornography on its Tou.tv website. In essence, all Canadian taxpayers were supporting pornography.
Sun Television (a rare conservative-leaning alternative for national news) decided to challenge such pornographic broadcasting; it did not seem proper that the publicly-funded broadcaster paid for and delivered graphic pornographic scenes. But the CBC disagreed with Sun Television. The Toronto Sun (March 8, 2012) reported that CBC president and CEO Hubert Lacroix defended the pornographic programming, “saying it was popular in France, good value for money, and perfectly in line with CBC’s mandate.” Fortunately, the CBC pulled its controversial web show in early March.
Another example from the CBC, as Easter approached, is the CBC article “Religion for Atheists, the Non-believer’s Guide to Spirituality” (March 26, 2012). A producer with the CBC Radio program Ideas, Richard Handler reported on the recent “Reason Rally,” a gathering of 8,000 to 25,000 atheists on Washington’s National Mall. (The wide discrepancy of numbers means that there was nothing close to a proper or realistic count of actual protesters; journalists consistently exaggerate numbers to favor their secular bias.)
Using descriptive language such as “fabulously articulate” and “affable,” Handler appears to be taken with Swiss-British philosopher/television presenter Alain de Botton, an atheist who “loves the sway, the power” and architecture of religious institutions: “Only he doesn’t believe God has anything to do with any of it.”
“In the end,” Handler claims, “for both de Botton and someone like [Christopher] Hitchens, you don’t need God’s imprimatuer to license human feelings of wonder. To use the popular phrase, you really can be ‘spiritual without being religious.’”
Sadly, from many within the CBC circle, this is as close as one will hear of Jesus Christ and Happy Easter.
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