LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY friarjohn)

LEFT BEHIND:
The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media

It would surprise few people, conservative or progressive, to learn that coverage of the intersection of religion and politics tends to oversimplify both. If this oversimplification occurred to the benefit or detriment of neither side of the political divide, then the weaknesses in coverage of religion would be of only academic interest. But as this study documents, coverage of religion not only overrepresents some voices and underrepresents others, it does so in a way that is consistently advantageous to conservatives.

As in many areas, the decisions journalists make when deciding which voices to include in their stories have serious consequences. What is the picture of religious opinion? Who is a religious leader? Whose views represent important groups of believers? Every time a journalist writes a story, he or she answers these questions by deciding whom to quote and how to characterize their views.

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Note: It is so nice that somebody else is saying this. Even if it is a bit late. One of the reasons that these guys can be so sucessfull is that they have learned to manipulate the media. There is a reason WHY Jerry Falwell was on the TV so often: he made himself available. Also, the media, for reasons unknown to me, have bought into the lie that the Fundies are the default form of religious expression, from which all others dirive. That most fundamentalisms are born of the 19th century seems to escape most, if not all. This hands these intellectual parasites more authority than they deserve. It also allows the theocrats to spread the lie that they are "real" Christians, and not a collection of wierdos following a distorted form of the faith.