NPR On Point Roundtable

[Thomas1981]

I heard that NPR was going to have a discussion on religion and the public square today. I was excited that mainstream media was going to talk faith and switched over from Catholic radio to NPR. This only confirmed how big the gap is between orthodox (small o) Christians and elite mainstream America today. Not one of the panelists opposed same sex marriage (Felker-Jones may be personally against but not against the SCOTUS decision). One was all about “re-interrogating the text” to conform to the world and other post-modernist mushiness. The “conservative” wing of the panel was held up by feminist theologian Beth Felker-Jones (nothing against her, but she doesn’t exactly represent traditional Christian thinking). Nothing wrong with having a diversity of opinion on the panel, but the mainstream media idea of diversity of opinion excludes a large swathe of believers. The comments section on this program is also instructive if you want to know what kind of anti-religious hate is out there. Well, back to Catholic radio, not much reason to give mainstream media another chance.

Wonder if anyone else listened to this and had any thoughts?

onpoint.wbur.org/2015/07/06/god-public-life-united-states-scotus-charleston

 

[MacBP]

The comments sections on anything to do with religion in the public square is always a horror show. For what its worth, I don’t think that is representative of society at large. The only people who comment will be those that have strong feelings one way or the other and on a NPR (which I understand to be left-of-center) you’ll find that most people with a strong opinion have a strongly negative opinion of organized religion. I, personally, have vow to never, ever look at the comment section. A waste of time and blood pressure…

As to your other point — why is it that social and religious conservatives tend to be marginalized or excluded from diverse panels — I think that the left ignores us because they largely believe we have nothing of value to say. Many of them think that we are not only bad but morally wrong, and have no desire to give a viewpoint to a way of life that they may find repugnant. By excluding intelligent and thinking conservatives from these sorts of discussions, these forms of media are able to perpetuate the myth that such individuals don’t exist. That’s awfully convenient for the left, because they can then effectively dismiss any conservative element as being fringe or crazy.

I’m not entirely sure what the solution is. Modern media is so fragmented that the only way to survive is to cater to their niche. The last thing you want to do is upset that niche, and so you only present articles and points of view that your niche will agree to. I guess encouraging people to get their news from a wide variety of sources, whatever your political affiliations are, maybe the best way for people to get an informed and balanced argument.

 

[Murmurs]

Perhaps you could do what we have in Britain, where broadcast news organisations (eg the BBC) have a legal duty to be impartial and balanced in reporting, in discussion etc. It is sometimes done to the point of ridiculousness but generally, it works in having a balance.

I know many in the US would have no truck with what would be perceived (I think wrongly) as “government interference”, but it would actually solve this kind of thing (and for liberals who complain about conservative “debate” that shuts them out too), in an instant…

 

[Dwyer]

I heard that NPR was going to have a discussion on religion and the public square today. I was excited that mainstream media was going to talk faith and switched over from Catholic radio to NPR. This only confirmed how big the gap is between orthodox (small o) Christians and elite mainstream America today. Not one of the panelists opposed same sex marriage (Felker-Jones may be personally against but not against the SCOTUS decision). One was all about “re-interrogating the text” to conform to the world and other post-modernist mushiness. The “conservative” wing of the panel was held up by feminist theologian Beth Felker-Jones (nothing against her, but she doesn’t exactly represent traditional Christian thinking). Nothing wrong with having a diversity of opinion on the panel, but the mainstream media idea of diversity of opinion excludes a large swathe of believers. The comments section on this program is also instructive if you want to know what kind of anti-religious hate is out there. Well, back to Catholic radio, not much reason to give mainstream media another chance.

Wonder if anyone else listened to this and had any thoughts?

All the “experts” on Public Media are all handpicked and chosen by the Media people ahead of time; there’s a vetting process.

Same thing with all the private Media out there.

I’ve noticed if the issue under discussion is a political issue, the Media will represent the two political views relatively fairly; but if the issue is a social moral issue, the experts and guests are all social liberals and the discussion is one-sided.

onpoint.wbur.org/2015/07/06/god-public-life-united-states-scotus-charleston