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Junior Member
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 80
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The GAMOW Media Blackout
The following is the text of a letter I wrote to Bob Somerby, who writes the internet-based media criticism site <a href="http://www.dailyhowler.com" target="_blank">The Daily Howler</a>:
Quote:
Dear Mr. Somerby,
Perhaps this isn't up your alley, what with the elections heating up and the great Gore-Horton lie being trashed out, but it is an interesting case of the press telling the story it wants to tell, or not, based on an increasingly Conservative point of view.
As you may know, but honestly, you might not from the press attention, on Nov 2, 2002 there was the first and largest Godless American March on Washington from the Washington Monument to the end of the Mall culminating in a very instructive and interesting rally with notable speakers such as Michael Newdow of "Pledge" fame and Chris Harper from the satirical Landower Baptist Church. The rally was attended by several thousand people (2000-3000 depending on your bean counters) and sponsored by, among others, American Atheists and the Internet Infidels.
As an atheist since I was of age to understand sense from nonsense, I have faced all manner of intrusions of religion on my life, from the ubiquitous Pledge of Allegiance to having to sign a statement swearing to God on a federal employment application. Not to mention the shallow, "look at me" godliness following the 9/11 attacks. Here we are, it's 2002 and we are still killing each other en masse over our respective imaginary beings.
At a time when religiousity has become increasingly assumed and injected into the public discourse, when morality and religious dogma are assumed to be inseparable, where a perfectly reasoned court decision such as Goodwin's decision in Newdow vs. U.S. Congress will probably be reversed without anything like substantial public discussion, where Bush's "Faith Based Initiatives" aim to raid the public coffers for religious programs whose primary aim is to promote religion under the guise of charity, when both the President and the Attorney General are Born-Again Christians and so is the leader of the opposition, Al Gore, it is significant that so many people took the trip to Washington to stand up and be counted.
Too bad the press looked the other way. Both the coverage of the Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59379-2002Nov2.html] and the Washington Times [http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021103-51797129.htm] was perfunctory. It seems that "balanced" coverage in the Conservative press corps means giving 50-60 ranting Christian protestors, some of whom tried to disrupt the proceedings as much as possible with bullhorns, as much ink as the 2000-3000 people who were gathering to have their voices heard in a country that increasingly marginalizes atheists, agnostics and freethinkers, if not the outright denial of citizenship. No, we have not forgotten Bush Sr.'s remark that Atheists are not Americans.
It's strange, because a couple years back when the Promise Keepers, a rather narrow and well-funded group of Christian Fundamentalists marched on Washington, albeit in greater numbers, they got article after article explaining who they were, what they wanted, their philosophy and strategy. Now, when freethinkers do the same, the reaction of the press is "Oh look, some Atheists over there...let's ask the Christians what they think about that". The closest the press could come to substance is to quote some people's placards, truly "bumper sticker" reporting. All the coverage was bad, typically talking about "atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and secular humanists" without even bothering to explain what any of those terms meant, which is especially important in a religious nation where a great majority of people assume "atheist" means "someone who hates God". Even better is the phraseology of my favorite religious cult newspaper, the Washington Times, who declared us to be "self-proclaimed" atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and secular humanists. What is the purpose of the almost scare-quoted qualifier? Are we not really atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and secular humanists...are we deluded?
The rally had a lot of substance. Interesting speakers, interesting issues, interesting random people to talk to. Yet all this rated in the Washington press were a couple of going-through-the-motions articles and absolutely no coverage on supposed "public affairs" television like C-Span.
Curiouser and curiouser. If anything this just shows that Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, is right about having to become more active and media savvy. Well, assuming anything can make the press pay attention short of rioting.
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I think it is important to bring the lame, lukewarm and substanceless media coverage of GAMOW to the attention of people like Bob Somerby ( bobsomerby@hotmail.com ) and perhaps bring to the attention of the press that their coverage was tepid, stupid and, 50% of the time, based mostly on asking Christians what they thought about it all.
There's nothing we can do about this recent media black-out, but we can at least put them on notice for next time. Perhaps the next step is to compile a little letter-writing campaign to ask the press why they and their reporter's obviously gave us the quick 15-minute once over. If you read either article in the Time or the Post, it's apparent that the reporters could have been in and out with their background and quotes in 15 minutes. Did they have a dental appointment or something?
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11-04-2002, 07:17 AM
