by bob_rx2000 » Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:45 am
There is an old aphorism in the news business that "if it bleeds, it leads", meaning that sensational news will always push other news off the front pages. Since the vast majority of people don't really pay attention to the details, they get their impressions from those few lead stories and headlines. Since the advent of CNN and the 24-by-7 news cycle, there is heightened pressure to fill the time with sensational news, and of course, the bias of the editors at the various news outlets is going to creep into what is selected. This has all rolled up into "news" that features the extreme positions on every issue, and ignores for the most part the more central positions held by most of us.
If the A$$hats at Westboro Baptist are where you get your ideas about Christianity in contemporary America, well, you're going to have a skewed view, especially if all the information you get is what is presented by the lamestream TV news. I notice that the essentially balanced message of love and acceptance in my church somehow is being missed by those who report on religion. While I'm a somewhat fallen (ie irregularly attending) Lutheran, one of my sisters and her family have decided that an evangelical church fits them. I also don't hear much in the news about what this group does, either with mission work in the poor mountain communities in southwestern PA / WV, or on mission trips to Central America. How is that? Possibly it is because helping a poor family put a roof that doesn't leak on their house isn't very interesting or "newsworthy" unless a mush-mouth ex-President / peanut farmer is involved?
Bob_Rx2000
"Because, Gentlemen, I don't trust you..." Gunning Bedford, U.S. Constitutional Convention
"First God created the idiot. That was for practice. Then he created the School Board." Mark Twain