Catholic Ragemonkey

Media Bias: Fact of Life

My German grandmother used to say, "Call a spade a spade, dear," and then would mumble something in German under her breath. Only later that I found out what the other half is. The whole aphorism is "You must call a spade, a spade, and a spade is a shovel for manure," except use an earthier version of "manure."

Let's stop kidding ourselves. The media is biased, it will always be biased, and the sooner we accept that we can watch the news more consciously. Two brief examples of this.

1.) Andy Rooney opened his mouth, spoke for the Almighty in regards to Mel Gibson, and was left to dine upon a fine meal of shoe leather. No one has charged that Andy Rooney is suppressing Mel's free speech. He is permitted to publicly make fun of and deride the artistic expression of another with no penalty. However, if anyone of us raises a stink about urine-soaked crucifixes or plays where Jesus is portrayed as having an active homosexual relationship with one of the Twelve, then we are just backward cro-magnons. Lesson? If you are bashing Christianity, you are a champion of the arts and free speech. If you are endorsing Christianity, you are a troll and a throw back.

2.) For the last two days, the Daily Oklahoman, the daily that passes for a newspaper in central Oklahoma, has had two articles about Ash Wednesday. Commendable, right? Wrong! In neither article was a single Catholic priest featured or mentioned. There are 15 parishes, at least, in the metro area, and each of these places, on average, probably had 2 masses each. So the two Lutheran ecclesial communities are mentioned but the 30+ opportunities for Catholics to be featured are ignored. Heck, I would take a bare mention. After all it's our rite and they are co-opting it. (Interesting how Protestantism takes the parts of Catholic practice it wants and jettisons the rest. It's like a theological Luby's Cafeteria.)

It's rough waters ahead, kids.