History Channel's Bias

[danielsisk619]

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a good article that spells out the anti-Catholic / anti-Christian bias of the history channel or possibly an article about how incarcerate the history channel is?

The reason is my step-dad watches the history channel almost religiously and I’m afraid he might be taking what it says about Christianity and the Church to be true.

Please help me find something I can give him.

Thanks alot.

 

[Silvereel]

I watch the History Channel quite a bit. The actually programing isn’t noteably biased, no more so than your average text book (which can be pretty biased at times…), however they do invite many speakers on to the shows who are sometimes extremely biased, but again, they do allow you to hear various views. I’ve seen many shows concerning Christianity with Catholic priests and monks, Protestant pastors and various types of teachers speaking on them. I don’t think it’s particularly bad, and without doubt you can learn from it. Their medieval programs do sometimes portray the Church in unflatering ways, but quite frankly, there was corruption and there were failings, and there still are. The important thing to remember is that the whole structure of the Church can never be corrupt, even if members of it are. We can have a bad Pope, and have had bad Popes. But this doesn’t damage their Infalibility. We cannot judge the Church by the actions of people. So long as you keep this in mind, the History Channel is a decent source for basic historical knowledge.

 

[Catholicdeacon]

Father Corapi calls the history channel “The sasquash channel” this should give you an idea of the type of programming you get.

Their medieval programs do sometimes portray the Church in unflatering ways, but quite frankly, there was corruption and there were failings.

The point is…it was during this time, that the Church was responsible for things like, the foundation of great cities. The creation of the University system, the preservation of The Classics, advances in mathematics, phylosophy, the sciences and the arts of this period are products of the Catholic Church…but of course why point these things, your average viewer knows these facts… What they do not know is how horrible and corrupt the Church was.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Catholic Deacon

 

[Epistemes]

The actually programing isn’t noteably biased

This past Easter weekend, the History Channel ran both episodes of its “Banned from the Bible” series, its forensics-based special on the “Crucifixion,” and a number of episodes dealing with the Da Vinci Code. I’m sure you’ve seen all of these, and none of them are particularly centristically balanced.

Compared to previous years when shows would be run about the historical Jesus, I found the selection of shows to be quite revealing. If it had access to the Discovery “Jesus Family Tomb” special which aired 2-3 years ago, I’m sure the HC would have aired it over Easter weekend, as well.

 

[Silvereel]

By not noteably biased I mean to say they probably aren’t that much more biased than any other secular source of history. I do agree, though, that they show too much junk on things like UFOs, Bigfoot and Dan Brown’s garbage.

 

[Epistemes]

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a good article that spells out the anti-Catholic / anti-Christian bias of the history channel or possibly an article about how incarcerate the history channel is?

The reason is my step-dad watches the history channel almost religiously and I’m afraid he might be taking what it says about Christianity and the Church to be true.

Please help me find something I can give him.

Thanks alot.

I don’t know that you’ll ever find any “official” article claiming that the HC is anti-Christian. This could be for a number of reasons, the prime one being that the study of history, in and of itself, is about evidence, primary sources, and the interpretation of those sources. Most historians, even those featured on the HC, would admit this and would not even think of suggesting that their interpretation represents absolute truth even though it may represent majority scholarly opinion.

What you will find, however, is a great deal of opinion regarding whether or not the actual programs are anti-Christian - and there’s plenty of that, even on the HC’s own discussion board!

The best thing you can do is educate yourself and your father about the scholars who are being invited to do the interpretation. Frequent cameos are made by Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, and Elaine Pagels. You don’t necessarily need to read their books in order to understand what these scholars are saying, but, to be fair to them, I wouldn’t count Wikipedia among my foremost sources for information.

 

[1edyson]

History Channel, Discovery, all those channels have been airing a lot of “biased” material lately. I use to watch it a lot, but have really been turned off from it.