The Religious Left is Left Out by the Commercial Media

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted May 30, 2007.

People can attach a thousand different meanings to words like "faith" and "values," yet when it comes to religion and politics, we've been conditioned to understand that they have a narrow and decidedly right-wing tilt. When pundits speak the phrase -- often in reverent tones -- we know they're not talking about the pacifism valued by Quakers, the environmental stewardship valued by Wiccans or the act of caring for the hungry, poor and sick that's valued by almost all faiths.

So after the 2004 election, when exit polls found that more people identified "moral values" as their most important issue than any other, it led to endless hand-wringing among liberals and Democrats about how they could win back "values voters" and a thousand columns about how progressive America is largely a secular, even God-hating America and would therefore always be a marginal part of the body politic. The electorate, we were told, was divided between pro-choice, gay-tolerant "blue," and anti-choice, gay-bashing "red."

Later, post-election surveys showed that gay marriage and abortion had in fact had little or no effect on the independent vote, the vote in battleground states, or the vote in states with anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballot. It wasn't until an exit poll conducted by Zogby after last year's midterm elections found that the "moral issue" cited most by voters was the Iraq war that the particular piece of conventional wisdom was abandoned by many political junkies, but it persists today among too many reporters.

How did that happen? How is it possible that political reporters routinely and without irony refer to people who have no moral qualms about bombing another country as a matter of choice rather than necessity as "values voters"? How do those same people wear the "values" label even while supporting one of the last death penalties in the industrialized world? How is it that self-proclaimed "Men of God" can call for the assassination of foreign heads of state, blame the 9/11 attacks on Americans' promiscuity and lobby to keep vaccines against deadly cancers out of the hands of young women and still claim to represent the moral compass of spiritual America?

"Left Behind," a new study by the watchdog group Media Matters for America helps answer those questions. It found that "conservative religious figures dominate the media's coverage of religious issues, while religious progressives and representatives of mainline religious institutions, who regularly make statements on controversial issues, went relatively ignored."

The study's key findings tell the tale:

• Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders



• On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable new channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders



• In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

… despite media depictions, evangelicals are a heterogeneous group with varying priorities: For example, in 2006 only 10 percent of evangelical Christians said abortion and gay marriage would be the most important factor in determining their vote. This heterogeneity of political views among religious Americans applies across varied religious denominations and traditions.

See more stories tagged with: media, religion, religious right, media matters

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

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