The Media
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair. 2 Corinthians 4:8
Neesie has to do current events for her history class, and I hadn't noticed this before, but the following words were in the teacher's manual under the current events' description:
". . . You will greatly influence the opinions your students form. Some of your responsibilities in this area will be guiding your students thinking, helping them to review the news in the light of the Word of God, and pointing out to them that what they read in newspapers or hear on newscasts is not necessarily the pure, unbiased truth. Newspapers adopt editorial viewpoints and slant their interpretation of current happenings to reflect editors' opinions. . . ."
My goodness! The copyright date on this manual is 1998--ten years ago. See how mildly and sweetly put it is? I wonder what the people who wrote this are saying now? I wanted to say quite a few things about the media, folks, but I don't think I can get the words down properly, I am so disgusted and frustrated with what I have been seeing happening during this presidential campaign. With but a few exceptions, I have been offended, repulsed, annoyed, and a few other verbs which you might think of, including nauseated. It's almost reached the point where I am having difficulty turning the radio or TV on or reading what the Associated Press and all those other guys are feeding the public. It's as if all sense of fairness and truthfulness in reporting has died. So the American public is suffering. Many are being fed a steady diet of slop and swallowing it, wherein those seeking the bare facts are struggling across a desert, simply wanting to find just a sip of truth. We have to look here and go there, trying to get at the root (the truth) of what's being reported.
Where does this leave us? How do we fight so gigantic a foe as the media, and the world of entertainment? Prayer. Pray to our God, friends. If you'd like to see integrity return, ask Him to help us and direct us. Maybe He'll show us what we can do. Pray that He will defeat whoever the enemies may be of truth, especially where it affects the future of our country. Pray that all reporting that is founded on lies, bias, and partiality will be turned back upon the heads of the ones who are responsible. God is able to do this.
Yesterday our pastor mentioned in prayer that we must not fret and worry over this election. We must remember Who is in charge of all things. I need to be reminded of this over and over again.
Here is a site where I have found reports which don't seem to be quite as slanted. If I run into any others, I'll let you know. If you know of any, please let the rest of us know. The site is Politico. com.
Update: Even though I have found some pretty balanced news reports on Politico, something came up today that caused me to suspect that they too need to be carefully monitored for fairness. I don't want to lead anyone astray!
Note: See the first post in this series for the ground rules on comments.
I think I should mention here that while I want to stay away from accusations against others in comments, I feel that since this is my blog and series, my making this accusation of unfairness by the media is legitimate and it definitely impacts this election. But feel free to respectfully disagree with me if you think my contention is unfounded. Basically, this post is one of many calls to prayer which you will see in this series. Thanks for understanding!
9 comments:
I agree with everything you said, Nanna. We almost have to be like detectives and root out the truth from amongst a pile of lies an insinuations! I'm glad we have ONE standard for truth - the Word of God!
i totally agree with you on the advertisements and the editorials made my the media. our local station does a "check the facts" kind of piece as they go through many of the ads (mostly local). it seems as though there is very little truth in any of them.
i've gotten to the point where i don't believe ANY of the ads, and i'm sure i'm not alone. this means that the ads are totally wasted on me and others. it makes me want to ask the politicians, "why? why put out anything that isn't the solid truth?" and that would mean that ads would have to be about the candidate him/herself and not all the mudslinging that is happening. which we could all do without anyways.
I think most people know that the majority of the media is for Obama. And the attacks on Gov Palin are ridiculous. I watch Fox News all the time. My sister-in-law says it is "slanted." She was a guidance counselor before retiring. I look at the Drudge Report, the Source Daily ( which could have been hacked yesterday by the Obama police), World Net Daily. The last two are Christian sites. You might like Townhall.com.
As we were discussing on Saturday, it really is discouraging to see how the media has slanted this election. Nothing is balanced anymore, besides a few news programs and websites. Instead of getting angry (which I have been getting lately!), you are right- praying is a much better option.
Excellent post Mrs. R.
Prayer is beginning to look like the answer to all that ails us now days, Maxine. I don't say that nonchalantly, either. I do believe, if we are to have a nation that stands on Godly principles, we are going to have to pray like we've never prayed before, to turn this nation around.
The media today is not the media I remember in my earlier years. Or, was I too young to realize they were perhaps just like they are now? I don't know. But it seems there is only bias in the media today and they seem to be out only to hurt someone.
God is definitely in charge and I'm trying not to get worked up over this election. I do understand we each of a responsibility to learn all we can, pray, and vote accordingly. But how many will exercise those things and vote wisely is yet to be told.
Thanks for giving us the prayer outline. I will be praying that truth wins in the end. We do know that GOD has it all under control; we just don't know the end.
funny how history repeats itself isn't it...
we just keep repeating our same old mistakes over and over.. the only difference is that the news media now grab a situation and put their own spin on it as soon as it happens, making it very difficult for the rest of us to form an unbiased opinion...
I would be very worried about the election if I did not know that God is in control..
Thank you for this series of postings...
Mimi
Dear Maxine, Great Post. We know that prayer is the only answer. The media holds very little if any truth but we do know that the Bible say in John 17:17 "Sanctify them through thy truth;thy WORD is truth." Sometimes in these times it is hard to know the truth so we have to go to the Bible and see what truth is and then hold up all other things in its light. then and only then will we be able to judge rightly. Thank you Maxine, connie
I do enjoy this blog!
If we are honest, America has never been a bastion of well-informed citizens. Even as our founding fathers cautioned us that a successful republic demands an educated citizenry, we all know that few colonials were “educated.” And as Americans pushed off toward the western regions, education was a lesser priority to survival. We know that “yellow journalism” tainted popular support for the Spanish-American War. If we “fast forward” to the era prior to World War II . . . we find most Americans were still under-educated, but this began to change afterwards because of the GI Bill and other programs.
In the post-war period, we find significant changes in the American education system . . . from “progressive” to “socialist” ideologies. As a result, our children are still under-educated. And this is after spending hundreds of billions of dollars. It makes me wonder, if taxpayers are “investors” in our children’s future, why aren’t we demanding a better end-product? I daresay that 70% of high school graduates today do not know who Ronald Reagan was . . . but even worse, they are incapable of critical thinking.
World War II was also significant because it was at this time when the “free press” became the “partisan press.” I suspect there have always been examples of partisanship in media editorials, but today we have returned to “yellow journalism”; news stories written with a preconceived bias, and particularly an anti-American bias. This is important because our under-educated population is unable to recognize bias when they read it . . . if they read at all, and if they receive most of their news from televised media, it is even worse. Few people today challenge the news by performing additional research. Few people today bother to ask, “Why?”
There are those who argue that it is nearly impossible for journalists to divorce themselves from their political prejudices. I disagree. Journalists can disassociate themselves from bias by telling us these facts: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. From that, we can draw our own inferences. Well, some of us can . . . mostly older people who really did receive a quality education. Everyone else is subject to manipulation by what has become a “dishonest” press.
Sigh.
I apologize for being so effusive.
Semper Fidelis,
That's okay, Mustang! It certainly is one of the most informative comments I've ever received. Thanks for the insight!
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