Media Bias in Haggard Case (and Elsewhere): Ugly and Undeniable
Posted by: Michael Medved at 7:26 PM
Today?s media obsession involves the apparently disgusting behavior of one Ted Haggard, who just resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals. Four days before an election, we don?t talk about the startling new unemployment figures (the best in five years!) or progress against North Korea (winning concessions no one expected). Instead, we?re treated to excruciating detail about a pastor from a Colorado Springs mega-church who admits that he purchased methamphetamines and received massages from a gay prostitute.
Isn?t the partisan agenda utterly transparent in the intense attention focused on this story? Very few Americans had ever heard of Haggard before the scandal broke yesterday; he is in no sense a household name. He is not a candidate for any public office, nor has he played an especially visible role in this election. Had these charges been made against a liberal pastor, or an atheist activist of any stripe, it?s hard to believe that cable news networks would cover the story as if it were deeply significant?
The purpose of the Haggard focus is to remind everyone of Mark Foley, the media ?Golden Oldie? from a few weeks ago. The cherished theme ? that Republicans and conservatives only pretend to honor morality, but actually behave horribly in their private lives ? gets big time re-enforcement from Haggard?s heinousness. Just as the Foley Fiasco managed to stop Republican momentum a month ago, so the tawdry Ted-stuff is supposed to stop the current surge toward the GOP in key races across the country?
It may work, alas, even though the media bias emerges as ugly and undeniable.
Two other recent examples turned up in two recent headlines in USA TODAY, a newspaper that generally tries to be more impartial than many of its shamelessly leftist counterparts.
On Monday, October 30th, USA TODAY ran the following headline: MINORITY ENROLLMENT IN COLLEGE STILL LAGGING, but the substance of the article told a totally different story: minority enrollment rose by 50.7% between 1993 and 2003, while white enrollment went up only 3.4%. Every minority group saw huge gains --- with Hispanic enrollment up by a staggering 70%, while Native American students at four year institutions increased by 50%, signaling a ?major shift.? Overall, 47.3% of white high school graduates attend college, vs. 41.1% of black high school graduates ? a remarkable and encouraging closing of the once huge racial gap. Rather than suggesting that minority college attendance was ?still lagging,? the accurate headline would have declared: MINORITY ENROLLMENT IN COLLEGE SURGING.
Another headline similarly distorted the contents of a major article. On November 1, the Life Section of USA TODAY proclaimed: ?MAINLINE PULLS IN PROTESTANTS; Pews are Filling Up in Some Churches.? I ended up reading the whole piece because it looked like a reversal of a long-standing trend in which the only gains in Protestant church membership involved Evangelical, not Mainline denominations. But rather than a shift in that trend, the numbers in the article itself actually confirmed the Evangelical increases, and the simultaneous declines for Mainline denominations. United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (very much considered a Mainline, moderate-liberal denomination, despite its name), Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, Disciples of Christ, and the ultra liberal United Church of Christ ALL lost members between 1995 and 3004. Meanwhile, Southern Baptist Convention, the Mormons, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Assemblies of God all gained membership in the same time period. In other words, far from showing that ?MAINLINE PULLS IN PROTESTANTS,? a more accurate headline would have declared, ?MAINLINE LOSING MEMBERS; while Evangelicals and others continue to grow.?
What, precisely, is the agenda here? It?s the same point of view that leads to the heavy Haggard focus: anything to make Evangelicals and religious conservatives look hypocritical or irrelevant. And the headline over ?lagging? minority enrollment when that enrollment actually surged, goes along with the basic script that injustice has only gotten worse under Bush, and that America remains a bigoted, unfair nation that needs sweeping new government programs to help us achieve equality.
Media bias remains a constant problem in mainstream publications and TV networks but in the run-up to a crucial election it becomes especially notable and destructive.
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