New Stupid Media Trick

Step 1: Arrange a debate between Richard Dawkins and Leading Catholic Prelate.

Step 2: Allow Dawkins to blather about how Old Testament Jews were a small tribe of ignorant savages and brutal barbarians who were way behind us in their understanding of 21st century moral standards, not to mention in their grasp of biology and the art of making blenders and microwaves. This is, of course, standard atheist boilerplate.

Step 3: Prelate then grants that Old Testament Jews were indeed a tiny little nation who were often savages and barbarians and that they were ignorant of much that we now take for granted, thanks to developments which have occurred over the past 5000 years.

Step 4: Have standard issue media freakout and scream “Australia’s most senior-ranked Catholic says Jews ‘intellectually and morally inferior'”.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Bishops, God bless ’em, really need to develop some media savvy about how things like this go. The purpose of the MSM is not to inform or enlighten. It is to sell beer and shampoo with ginned-up controversy. And Know Nothing anti-Catholicism is one of the drugs of choice for the MSM. Induces a crystal meth 15 minute hate high (particularly in the UK press) every time.