As if having the Terri Schiavo case forcefed (bad choice of words) to me over the last three weeks isn’t enough, the mainstream media is continuing its assault on my independent thinking in new, more creative ways. This morning on “Good Morning America,” ABC featured a lead story on a new set of candles designed to smell “as Jesus did.” Apparently, some nut is manufacturing candles that he claims smell like Jesus’ natural fragrance–whatever that means. The pre-commercial tease went like this: “When we come back, we’ll tell you about a new set of candles that some say smells exactly like Jesus, the Savior, smelled.” First, why is this on television at all? Second, how can a reporter on a national TV show refer to Jesus as “the Savior?” Don’t we live in a country of all religions? Where we make no assumptions about the religious views of others?
Since the November elections, the mainstream media (ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, Newsweek, TIME, etc) have been engaged in a concerted effort to pander to the Religious Right that is now in firm control of this nation. TIME has been running cover stories on Jesus and Mary like it’s going out of style. NBC and CNBC just concluded a weeklong series on “Faith in America” in which they exhorted views to encourage their coworkers to pray. Figuring that the Religious Right is now the majority in America, the media moved to take the easy way out–as usual. Just pander to them. TV execs have moved to secure the Right as “faithful” viewers of their programming.
What’s funny to me is not that the media has taken this tactic, for nothing more can be expected of reporters–a lazy, judgmental they are. What’s funny is that the same networks pumping their version of Christianity into unsuspecting brains are the very same networks that pump Desperate Housewives and other sexually suggestive programming into our homes. This is true hypocrisy.
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