ALEXANDRIA, Va.--The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative media watchdog group, claims new research shows a news media bias against Christianity. Religion Newswriters Association disagrees.
Baptist Press reports the disagreement stems from a recent MRC study of TV religion stories showing three networks more than doubled religious segments this year compared to a 1993 study.
But while there was undoubtedly more coverage of religion, the treatment of Christianity in the stories often included scholars who questioned the authenticity or authority of the Bible.
"Even when the amount of religion news increases, the media's tone remains cold, questioning, even hostile," said Tim Graham, MRC's director of media analysis. "The more traditional or orthodox the religious belief, and the more influential it threatens to become in the culture at large, the more the television networks seem to explain it away, as something ‘scholars' and ‘experts' dismiss."
However, the executive director of the Religion Newswriters Association responds that MRC has it "all wrong." Debra Mason said the Media Research Center is relying on outdated, stereotypical information of a largely secular press.
The MRC research noted extensive coverage of the recent sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's pontificate, as well as increased coverage of Islam and extensive coverage of the case of openly homosexual Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson. However, the MRC claims these news stories focused on political and cultural angles rather than scriptural or theological matters.
The MRC also reported media hostility toward orthodox faith and intrigue with minority religions and fads. MRC reported that religious experts who appear most often in the media are hostile to religious orthodoxy.
"When surveys of the national media have shown that half of journalists are religiously unaffiliated and 86 percent never attend church or synagogue, it's not a surprise that they just don't get it," said MRC founder L. Brent Bozell.
But Mason of the Religion Newswriters Association told Baptist Press Bozell's assertion is based on old news. A more recent survey found journalists religiosity more closely resembles the population as a whole, she said.
"The real culprit in coverage problems of religion news is not an intentional liberal slant," Mason said. "Rather, it is ignorance from reporters unaware of the complex diversity of religious belief."
