Experts sound off on the media's 'negative' or absent coverage of religion: 'Incomplete at best'
'Most of the coverage tends to be on the negative side'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Media experts argue that the Fourth Estate's take on faith is tenuous at best and often tainted by politics, particularly in light of a series of controversial reports on President Biden's Catholicism.
The Washington Post was ripped last week for describing Biden as "deeply Catholic" in an analysis of The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' vote to advance a push by some church leaders last week to draft a formal document on the meaning of the Eucharist, in an apparent attempt to deny Biden and pro-choice politicians Communion. The Catholic Church opposes abortion as the taking of human life.
"Again and again, the corrupt media just don't get religion," Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway replied after seeing the Washington Post describe Biden as devout.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The same weekend, the New York Times described Pope Francis as a "liberal" when tweeting out a link to its report on the Catholic Church and abortion.
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Ryan T. Anderson, author and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, disputed the Times' distinctions of the two men.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The first sentence of a recent NYTimes report read: ‘Pope Francis and President Biden, both liberals, are the two most high-profile Roman Catholics in the world.’ Now maybe it's true that those two are the two ‘most high-profile’ Catholics. But one is the successor of St. Peter, the universal shepherd of the Church, while the other claims to be a devoted, pious member of the Church," he said. "One says ‘children have a right to a mother and a father,’ compares abortion to ‘hiring a hit man to solve a problem,’ and decries ‘gender theory’ as ‘ideological colonization.’ The other supports taxpayer funding of abortion."
"There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights," he added. "One is an orthodox Catholic, the other is an orthodox liberal."
The Daily Caller's Mary Margaret Olohan compiled several other recent examples of the media's questionable take on the Catholic Church, concluding, "The media only tolerates their own version of Catholicism."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The conservative Media Research Center's Tim Graham said the media can't have it both ways.
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"The central point is this: Liberals want to separate church and state, but they seem unable to let the church make internal decisions that affect their political standing," Graham told Fox News. "The church shouldn't meddle in politics, but it's OK for politicians to meddle in internal church disputes like who is worthy of Communion."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The media's seemingly skewed religious coverage isn't, however, limited to the Catholic Church. Pundits have often questioned the behavior of evangelical Christians, as well.
In a recent "Morning Joe" segment, panelists agreed that evangelicals were a "moral freak show," with one guest, former Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner, accusing evangelicals of rejecting progressive culture out of resentment because they believe they've been "roiled by grievances" by "the elite culture." Co-host Joe Scarborough bemoaned that evangelicals adhere to "legalism" surrounding issues like abortion and gay marriage, arguing "that is not the definition of the Gospels."
Timothy Head, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said he too would slap red marks on the media's coverage of Christianity.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I would give it at best an incomplete, at worst a failing grade because not only do they not cover it … But also most of the coverage tends to be on the negative side," he told Fox News.
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Where, he wondered, are the reports about the charitable work churches are completing in countless communities?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"People of faith and faith-based ministries are kind of the glue that holds our society and culture together, between charities and schools and a host of services to people who are underserved, and media does a poor job of shedding light on any of that," Head said.
Head said he'd like to see less coverage of the declining number of people attending mainstream churches and more headlines on the increase in non-denominational churches from coast to coast. But Head revealed that he gets at least three calls a year from mainstream outlets asking him to give them "another comment" about how "the number of southern Baptists are shrinking."
Nor does the media's religious double standards appear to be a new phenomenon. During the 2008 presidential election, the press was accused of giving a pass to then-candidate Barack Obama for his relationship to the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was captured making anti-Semitic comments from the pulpit. But during the 2012 presidential election, networks spent hours analyzing Republican nominee Mitt Romney's Mormonism.
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Head suggested one solution that could grant Christians better coverage is that newsrooms hire more people "who don't live" in major cities like New York, Washington, and Los Angeles.
"I think it's time that [Christians] get a lot more press and a lot more attention because I think that they're worthy of their story being told," he added.