This post is in honor of beautiful Terri Schiavo and I pray that she forgives us all.
Recently I came across an audio file of Mariah Blake complaining about how the Christian right has ‘their own facts’. That is twisted thinking, isn’t it? I mean…aren’t FACTS just…FACTS?
Here’s an excerpt from that interview–from Public Radio in Wisconsin.
Dave: And…this is Media Talk here on the ideas network of Wisconsin public radio, I’m Dave Berkman.
Most Americans get their news from what is often shorthanded as the MSM -the mainstream media. For an increasing minority, the nation’s 60 million evangelical Christians, the source for what many know about their communities, the nation and the world, are what my guest this hour, Mariah Blake, in her cover story in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review, terms quote ‘an alternative universe of faith-based news’ endquote. And you can join us in our exploration of these faith-based media by dialing anywhere in or out of state: Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, everywhere in Wisconsin- 1-800-486-8655. In Milwaukee, though, please use the local number 227-2050, and thank you for joining us this evening, Mariah Blake.
Mariah: Thank you for having me, Dave.
Dave: Let’s begin, Mariah Blake, with some of the basics of the alternative universe of Faith-Based News. First, the kinds of numbers of over the air tv and radio stations and cable networks where we’ll find this kind of news.
Mariah: Well there’s basically–in terms of television–there’s very little in the way of local stations. It tends to be these massive networks that either reach across the country or reach across broad swoths of the country…
Dave: We have a full power UHF full-time Christian station here in Milwaukee that devotes quite a bit of its time from picking up national news.
Mariah: Oh really? Ok. I’m not familiar with this- I don’t know if it’s one of these large national networks.
Dave: No, no, I’m saying it connects up with them. It’s a local group called Voice of Christian Youth and the stations I think the most powerful FM transmitter and a powerful UHF transmitter going to the call letters of WVCY.
Mariah: Ok, so there may be in your particular market there may actually may be a local station. In many cases these national or even international networks have very high-powered local transmitters and communities across the country. Sometimes they’re non commercial licenses which means they’re competing for space with the likes of NPR and public television. But there’s 6 national networks-at least 6 television networks and each of them reaches tens of millions of homes.
Dave: Reaches and viewed are two very different things.
Mariah: Reaches and viewed are two very different things. And part of the issue with measuring the impact of these networks is the fact that– that most of them are not measured by Arbitron or Nielsen–or Nielsen at least, when it comes to television. But the ones that are rated, the largely viewed shows like the 700 club, about 1 million people view the 700 club every day. So…
Dave: That’s now broadcast –actually isn’t it on the ABC family channel?
Mariah: That is broadcast on the ABC Family channel. And that’s one of the interesting things that’s happening on television and on radio which is that a lot of the Christian news and talkshows are actually finding their way onto mainstream channels or stations. And it’s happening much more in the radio realm than it is in the television realm.
Dave: As a matter of fact, we got a wonderful example of a station that’s widely listened to here in Milwaukee out of Chicago which is the CBS Infinity-owned all news station WBBM. And I suspect this is true of other all news stations in New York, Philly, LA and San Fran. It was carrying a daily commentary by perhaps the most influential force in evangelical politics and I’m speaking of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson. They billed it, though, as a straight family advice segment with no indication of who Dobson is. So what are we seeing this bleedover this spillover into the so-called mainstream media?
Mariah: I know that Dobson reaches 7 million listeners, which is enormous. That’s on par with some of the most influential rightwing talk radio hosts.
Dave: BBM—WBBM has dropped him, I should note.
Mariah: Ok, but yeah, I think he’s on—to give you an example-The USA radio network-which is one of these Christian radio networks- evangelical networks that has a conservative political slant to their news- they are carried by about 800 stations and more than half of those are what you’d call mainstream stations so they’re not Christian stations.
Dave: There are about 1500 stations I understand in radio and about 100 generally low power UHF stations in tv that identify themselves as full time Christian.
Mariah: Actually the number of radio stations is….well there’s over 2000 religious radio stations and almost all of them are conservative evangelical.
Dave: Not too many owned and operated by the Unitarians.
Mariah: (laughs) But um I would say that’s just a fraction of- in terms of television, where the vast majority of people are viewing Christian television, is on cable and on satellite stations. And that’s really how the Evangelical television networks have grown. They’ve added tens of millions to their distribution lists by getting onto these high tech broadcast platforms. And one of the most interesting things that I think has happened is there’s 3 direct broadcast satellites that are operating in this country. There’s direct tv, there’s ecostar, and many fewer people have probably heard of sky angel.
Dave: And all of its transponders transmit Christian fare.
Mariah: Yeah it’s 100%-It’s 36 channels of Christian programming and nothing else. So this means-and here’s one of the interesting things that is happening-these means that people now have the option of viewing exclusively conservative evangelical programming. So you have this universe-this alternative universe-which not only includes news, but now includes sitcoms, reality shows, documentaries, film, basically the entire spectrum of television entertainment–and it’s all delivered with this conservative Christian slant. So people don’t have to be exposed to anything that differs from their point of view.
Dave: There are those that would contend, therefore, that the significance of faith-based news is often exaggerated, given that –no pun intended, it mainly preaches to and reaches the converted. Is that an accurate assessment?
Mariah: Well I think that one of the most alarming trends in our culture today is sort of the Balkanization of information – so that you have people-people don’t have a common understanding ‘cause they don’t have a common source of information. It used to be that you had a relatively limited number of news sources and now you have more and more partisan news sources that are just giving people the information that already–that builds upon their existing ideas and stereotypes. It doesn’t challenge them. It doesn’t—and it-I guess it helps to—I think it creates a culture in which people are thinking less and questioning less.
Oh, and we must be ‘questioning’ everything with that moral relativist’s eye, right? Because the entire wingnut ideology is so incorrect.
Dave: And reinforcing. And of course the other side of that is -do you end up when you talk about a journalism which tries to achieve this myth of objectivity as something more than a rather bland he said she said. I know, as a matter of fact I had your publisher on about two or three months ago on a pc had (head?) and talking about that concern.
Riiiight, Dave. We wouldn’t want to ‘reinforce’ anything. You know, ‘love the one you’re with’ and ‘peace, my brother’!
Mariah: Boy, I don’t know exactly how to res(pond)—I guess the thing is that the delivery on these Christian networks I’m talking about the news now and..
Dave: Yes.
Mariah: and not the talk shows which inject a lot of opinion-but the delivery is actually –it tries to mimic this objective news –
Dave: Visually, they are straight news casts.
Mariah: They appear very much to be straight news casts. But the information they deliver—the story selection is very different. There’s a real-they’re really focused on values issues which makes a lot of sense, but also, the facts are different–I think we’re all entitled to our own opinions, as I’m saying, we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but we’re not all entitled to our own facts.
Dave: I want to come to two major current news stories where that has been the case. But first let me ask you this. Who are the journalists? And what criteria do they have to meet to get a job in faith-based news?
Mariah: This is an interesting question and actually it varies dramatically. So some of these people, many of the people I met are actually people who come out of a mainstream news background. They happen to be people of faith, maybe they are disgruntled with what’s happening in mainstream newsrooms. Then there are people who have—and it depends because there is a variation among these networks-there are actually some people who come out of a marketing background. Which I think is very interesting- and I think that reflects sort of the differences in the news products-some of these networks actually provide something that looks very much like news. It has a conservative Christian slant to it, and some of them– it’s just dressed up like news– propaganda dressed up like news.
Oh that’s interesting come from her when she’s been part of the cabal! Propaganda? Mariah Blake is part of the profuse progressive propaganda pumping of the Village Voice now!
Dave: Ok let’s take two current stories that are getting attention now.
Mariah: Ok.
Dave: How are they playing the struggle over the appellate judicial nominations that George Bush has made and what about the coverage of the Terry Schiavo case?
Mariah: Ok. Do you mind if I start with the Terri Schiavo case?
The Terri Schiavo case is actually a very interesting story. I started working on broadcasting before that became a big story in the media and I wasn’t very familiar with Terry Schiavo’s name- but actually Terry Schiavo has been a huge story on these Evangelical networks for three years. And in many ways, their coverage helped build momentum, I believe, for this upsurgent support for keeping her alive. James Dobson, who you mentioned earlier, was repeatedly in the early stages of the process, calling on his listeners to call Jeb Bush’s office. And he would shut down phone lines in Jeb Bush’s office before this escalated to the level that the Whitehouse was involved.
Dave: These stations are very good at that. We had with this Christian station which probably gets more than 5,000 viewers although their FM station has a lot more listenership here. They began attacking a station which about 18 years ago—a television station-decided to run very late night Friday night uncut R movies. And they literally tied up their switchboard and the station was unable to function, and finally it just gave up the ghost.
Mariah: Really? (laughs) That’s fascinating. That’s a very fascinating anecdote. I think that illustrates something about these stations and their relationship to their audiences. The audiences are not necessarily as large as the mainstream networks, but their listeners and viewers– there’s a sense of loyalty and commonality of purpose. And they take these calls to action very seriously. They act on what they hear and they see on these networks. I think much more than you or I would turn on the television and view what we see with a certain amount of skepticism. I think there’s less skepticism among these audiences about the facts.
Oh you think so, heh? Maybe they just have skepticism about the progressive nature of Ivy League-ers like you, and the fact that our elitist halls of academe have been pumping them out into our newsrooms for the past 25 years.
Dave: I’m Dave Berkman joined here on media talk by Mariah Blake is the cover story in the Columbia Journalism it explores how what she terms is the expanding universe of faith-based news is becoming a major news source for evangelical Christians. You can join us by calling anywhere in or out of state 1-800-486-8655 in Milwaukee, though, local number 227-2050. The rundown for Ben Marin’s show is on Monday at 3:00. “Problems faced by gifted kids”, something I never had to worry about, at 4:00 the Annual Rolling Thunder Annual Ride For Freedom, and it’s by the national president of American Gold Star mothers and you’ll hear that and Marins, Monday 3-6 here on the ideas network of Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Dave: I published a study going back about 15 years on the origins of religious broadcasting; its role in radio during the twenties in the Journal Of Popular Culture and two things struck me. One was that many of the leading clergy who broadcast in that era were mainstream protestants, and that there was almost no concern with politics by the evangelicals. When and why, Mariah Blake, did religious radio become almost exclusively rightwing fundamentalist and so politically focused?
Mariah: This was in large part the outcome of a struggle between the mainline churches and the evangelicals in the early days of broadcasting. The big C networks basically donated airtime to religious broadcasters and the evangelicals felt that this disadvantaged them because basically the mainstream churches were getting most of the airtime. So they formed the national association of evangelicals, which in turn formed the national religious broadcasters, and that group lobbied federal regulators and made it so that you had to pay for airtime. Now, the evangelicals had more entertaining flamboyant pastors who were able to basically bring in more donations and therefore buy more airtime, and eventually it was almost all evangelicals who were on the radio dials, the mainline ministries almost disappeared. And that’s continued to this day in terms of religious broadcasting it’s almost all evangelical-conservative evangelical.
Dave: And the..
Mariah: I’m sorry-
Dave: And the national religious broadcasters association is perhaps one of the most powerful lobbying groups supporting the agenda—of the conservative republican agenda.
Mariah: Yeah I don’t really say they’re one of the most powerful, but they’re certainly quite powerful and they influence FCC policy with their lobbying clout. So it’s not just- they work to help religious broadcasters to ensure that the policy is such that religious broadcasters can continue to grow rapidly- but they also influence– they do lobbying surrounding indecency issues and all kinds of other things that effect the media landscape in general.
Dave: As I’m not surprised, we have an absolutely full phone bank, let’s begin with Jim from Winona who has a profound question. Jim, you’re on.
Jim: Thank you very much. I’d like to get back to what your guest mentioned about facts. And how we’re not entitled to the facts is what she said. And my concern is that-
Dave: No, she meant to alter facts not entitled to their facts.
That’s right, Dave, cover for her.
Jim: What I’m trying to get to is-is there any standard for what we would consider to be factual? Is it always from a faith perspective, or is it possible from a reasoned perspective, is there any way we can come to agreement about what constitutes the facts? I remember back when I was in college, the science in the soviet system was laughed at because science had to reflect the soviet’s materialistic theory. Are the faith-based people now saying that science has to reflect the faith-based notion of science so there are no scientific facts?
Apparently you’re only looking at the scientists who are trying to fit within ancient evolutionary ideology rather than progress with science, like the Creationist scientists and so on. I bet you’ve never read anything about those ‘facts’ now, have you? You know, how science has advanced past that silly theory of evolution? Like how science has produced scientific reasoning for those pesky little vestigal organs? C’mon now.
Mariah: David, would you like me to respond to that?
Dave: Yeah, please.
Mariah: This is a complicated question. Facts are inherently-facts are inherently slippery in some respects. Some of the information that is being conveyed on these stations-I think they would have you believe that evolution and creationism or intelligent design-that those two theories-that there’s equal evidence scientifically to support those two theories when in reality there is not equal evidence.
Not that you’ve seen, anyway, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You haven’t been provided with all those ’slippery facts’, obviously.
A fact is a fact as far as I’m concerned. You don’t dismiss facts because they don’t fit in your predetermined story line!
Dave: And we’ve seen where cat scans and the overwhelming majority of physicians with specialties in dealing with patients like Terry Schiavo- it’s said that her brain had turned to liquid, and they kept saying “no she’s functional”, even with Tom Delay going so far as to say she’s merely mentally-challenged.
Mariah: I think yeah, that is a very good example. One of the most-more alarming things that I’ve heard on some of these Christian news networks they were actually reporting as facts-her parents claimed that she sat up and said that she wanted to live –that Terry Schiavo sat up and said she wanted to live– right before her feeding tube was pulled.
Dave: Yes.
Mariah: Now, you can imagine that if you’re a person who isn’t getting their news from any other source, you would feel that this innocent person who is able to sit up and speak is basically being murdered.
That’s right, but apparently you never read Nat Hentoff at your very own Village Voice who had a similar to position to the ‘religious rightwing’ on this one.
I have covered highly visible, dramatic “right to die” cases—including those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan—for more than 25 years. Each time, most of the media, mirroring one another, have been shoddy and inaccurate.
The reporting on the fierce battle for the life of 39-year-old Terri Schiavo has been the worst case of this kind of journalistic malpractice I’ve seen.
Mariah, you’re still wet behind the ears on all kinds of issues, aren’t you? Your irresponsible reporting isn’t isolated to Jack Idema, then!
Dave: I would take issue with one of the things that you said-If those people were getting news from other sources–and many of them do monitor the mainstream media…. This is only proof to the degree that they differ from what they’re hearing. This is only proof of the bias and the anti-Christian nature of the mainstream media.
Mariah: I think you’re probably right on that one. Yeah. I’ll give you the point on that one.
Yes, Mariah, he’s right on that one. And by acknowledging the truth in what he said, you just acknowledged the very real possibility that perhaps what her parents were saying about her sitting up in bed was the truth, and the media lied, which is why we were so outraged about the entire situation.
The media is complicit with Terri’s murder because they didn’t report those nasty little “slippery” facts, as you indicated.
Terri is in a better place, and I wish I could say that about us. But with the progressives bearing down on us in this manner, we need to be getting our message out now…more than ever.
God forgive them…! And God Bless you, Terri.
Thanks to Stop the ACLU for “Remembering Terri“
