Report: Media Skewing Religion with Dominant Conservative Voices
WASHINGTON – Evangelical and other faith leaders are increasingly expressing concern over the frequent media coverage that the religious right gets while the more progressive voices are "left behind."
A new research report titled "Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in the Major News Media" found that conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.
"Progressive voices are at a distinct disadvantage when compared to conservative access to print and TV representation," according to the Rev. Dr. Jim Forbes, senior pastor of The Riverside Church in New York City
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The new report, released by Media Matters for America – a progressive media watchdog – found 3.3 appearances by conservative religious leaders for every one appearance by a progressive when being quoted or interviewed in major news print and TV media. Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, was the most quoted, interviewed and mentioned religious leader, followed by Jim Wallis, best-selling author and president of Sojourners, and evangelist Franklin Graham.
"I have long felt that the media has given Americans a distorted view of what people of faith believe," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and one of the more popular progressive media-go-tos, during a press conference on Tuesday. "This research from Media Matters proves that."
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, believes today's popular culture equates fundamentalism and religious authenticity.
"The overwhelming presence in the news media of conservative religious voices leads to the false implication that to be religious is to be conservative, and worse, that to be progressive is to lack faith or even be against faith. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Research on media coverage of religious perspectives began after the 2004 election when "moral values" became the most important issue on which Americans based their vote. The report counted the number of times each person (10 conservatives and 10 progressives) was interviewed, quoted and mentioned until Dec. 31, 2006.
"Left Behind" is now being released weeks after the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who represented the religious right for many Americans, died and in turn placed increasing attention on a shift in evangelical focus among younger evangelicals.
Names like Falwell, Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network and Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family represent an "outgoing" and "aging" tide, said the Rev. Brian McLaren, best-selling author and a leader of the emerging church.
McLaren is convinced that a broader conversation is emerging even among evangelicals and that the number of progressive issues - including the genocide in Darfur, global climate change, fair trade, the gap between the rich and poor, and healthcare - is going to rise in importance.
"I'm certain that a new spirit is in the air," he said.
Still, conservative issues like abortion are not going to go away. The Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told The New York Times that the issue is going to "continue to be a unifying factor among evangelicals and Catholics."
Nevertheless, only 11 percent of Americans identify with the religious right political movement and only 7 percent, the religious left political movement, according to a 2006 Pew Forum survey. Meanwhile, 32 percent of all Christians identify themselves as liberal or progressive and 38 percent as born-again or evangelical Christians. And among evangelicals, 36 percent also describe themselves as liberal or progressive Christians.
Edgar called the media to seek a more balanced approach when covering issues of religion and to cover what the majority of faithful Americans are doing.
Today's American churches are hearing more about hunger, poverty, Iraq, and the environment from the pulpit, the 2006 Pew Forum survey revealed.
And while progressives have not shown cohesive answers to specific issues as conservatives have done, Forbes says progressive Christians have an "openness to new insight."
"It is good news that progressives are mobilizing for vigorous and effective use of the media and ensuring that the public will have access to perspectives they may not have received in the last few years," said Forbes.
Other findings in the "Left Behind" report included separate studies on "the celebrities" such as conservatives Falwell and Dobson as well as progressives Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. These leaders are frequently quoted and would outrank other leaders in their respective ideological categories, according to the report. The study found Jackson and Sharpton appear most often in the American media followed by the conservatives in this specific study.
Influential religious leaders, including megapastors Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes and Joel Osteen, were also absent from the final report as all three seem to avoid being associated with a political ideology and have messages that are too ambiguous to label them as simply "conservative," the report stated. If they were included in the main study, Warren would have placed fourth, Jakes sixth and Osteen seventh among the most quoted, interviewed, or mentioned conservative leaders.
