I really can't stand the news media. Nothing new, right? Just figured I'd throw this out there to illustrate that my contempt is spread equally, whether it's Fox, CNN, the New York Post, the New York Times, or this one...
The Metro, which despite the claims of its initial ad campaign is one of the preachiest newspapers I've ever read, ran a full, front-page story this morning about a girl who died of diabetes while her parents waited on supernatural intervention instead of sending their kid to the doctors. Now, search that Metro front-page I just linked you to, and see if you can find a single reference to this article. I'll grant that I only skimmed the top stories and national sections, but I couldn't even see a blurb for it on the sidebar, let alone a feature on it. I had to go to Google News and search the AP wire.
Now, if you'll read the story, note a few things. First, the mother responsible for not taking her child to see doctors does not profess an allegiance to any organised faith or religion. The presentation on the front-page of the Metro seemingly aimed to sideline that fact. The mother confesses to believing in the Bible, but that's as much as we get. So theoretically, she could be either a Christian Scientist, a Word of Faither, some zany New Ager, or any number of other groups who horribly misinterpret what the Bible actually says about divine healing and miracles. (Article to come some time in the future, I'm sure...)
Second, the story wasn't even something from the Metro staff. It wasn't groundbreaking journalism. It wasn't even anything that affects New Yorkers' lives – this incident happened out in Wisconsin. It didn't go on any further than the front page, and was copied directly from the Associated Press. This all begs the question, why on Earth would this be front page news in New York city, especially when the New York Post, New York Daily News, New York Times, USA Today (the national newspaper!), Google News headlines and BBC headlines say nothing about it, and instead, have whole slews of newsworthy items?
Because the American public school system (and I'm sure they're not the only ones) typically limits lessons on rhetoric, logic, propaganda and poetics to about one-and-a-half weeks in students' junior year of high school, I'll assume most people could use the lesson here. This is called agitprop. It is a decisively un-newsworthy story, or perhaps even newsworthy, but blown out of proportion, that seeks to enrage and snarl readers on both sides of the divide. I guess, as this blog has shown, it's worked. Yet, agitprop typically has another goal in mind, and that is to promote a certain set of values or principles. Now, I ask you – a supposedly "progressive" newspaper launches a front-page article about parental neglect some 1000 miles away from New York City, blames it in the headlines on "prayer", and then throws it into the presses without ever mentioning it again; what do you think they're getting at?
If you look around the internet and purportedly progressive, intelligent circles, you start getting the feeling that all religious believers, especially Christians (especially Bible-believing Christians) are nutters, idiots and impervious to reason and intellect. Yet, we note that this is an isolated incident with a family that does not even proclaim to have ties to Christianity-proper. I, for one, know that just about every Christian out there – from Word of Faith believers to skeptical, Bultmannian Anglicans – will take their kids to the doctors if things are serious enough. It's Christian Scientists, who at the least have a rather unorthodox take on things, that abjure the practise of modern medicine. But what do headlines like these put into the public mind? What does it do for a society both yearning to avoid Christianity, and make itself seem holier than the holier-than-thous?
While I think the emphasis on the media's role in the decline of faith in the West has been overblown, I'm not going to say the argument is without merit. I suspect nonsense like this will continue to gain in popularity as people "liberate" themselves from Christian morality, and find peace, love, comfort and hope in...
Well, whatever new religion rises up to supplant us, I suppose.
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