Quick Note: Gus diZerega in The New Yorker

August 27, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters Leave a Comment

Pagan author and Beliefnet blogger Gus diZerega is quoted in The New Yorker regarding a feature on the billionare libertarian conservatives David and Charles Koch, who fund “a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups”.

DiZerega, who has lost touch with Charles, eventually abandoned right-wing views, and became a political-science professor. He credits Charles with opening his mind to political philosophy, which set him on the path to academia; Charles is one of three people to whom he dedicated his first book. But diZerega believes that the Koch brothers have followed a wayward intellectual trajectory, transferring their father’s paranoia about Soviet Communism to a distrust of the U.S. government, and seeing its expansion, beginning with the New Deal, as a tyrannical threat to freedom. In an essay, posted on Beliefnet, diZerega writes, “As state socialism failed . . . the target for many within these organizations shifted to any kind of regulation at all. ‘Socialism’ kept being defined downwards.”

At his own blog, diZerega expands on the article and targets specific themes relating to the Koch family and their political worldview.

Americans have almost completely lost from sight a crucial distinction underlying the political thinking behind our founding.  All our Founders were as one in arguing that the Constitution created a limited government.  That is why the first ten amendments, our Bill of Rights,  declares limits on what government may do: it may not establish a state religion, it may not abolish freedom of the press, it may not make unreasonable searches and seizures, may not ban firearms, and so on.

Left far more vague is what government can do if people want it to act.  In fact James Madison explicitly said that if at some future date citizens trusted the federal government more than they did the state governments, it should expand its power – as it did during the Great Depression. (I would link to the appropriate passage in The Federalist, but I am moving and almost every book I have is in a box.)

Both the New Yorker article and diZerega’s follow-up make for thought-provoking reading, and I encourage you to check them out.

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Rupert, Beliefnet, and Me

July 19, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 1 Comment

I just wanted to quickly note that I’m extensively quoted in a new column by Michael Triplett at the media-observing site Mediaite on the recent sale of Beliefnet by former owners News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch to the evangelical Christian investment group BN Media. I’m afraid I don’t have many glowing laurels to lay at Beliefnet’s feet.

“The site itself, aside from a few of its blogs, was so watered down as to be completely uninteresting to those looking for something aside from bland platitudes and feel-good inspirational stories. As others have complained, the site seemed direction-less, purpose-less.”

Also quoted in the story is Get Religion’s Terry Mattingly, soon-to-be-former Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher, and David Gibson of Politics Daily. The piece paints a picture of a media giant that killed a once-popular (though fiscally struggling) religious site through inaction and indecision, a site that’s been losing its audience and faces an uncertain future with its new owners. It’s a very nice round-up on the situation, and I encourage you to check it out (and I’m not just saying that because he say’s I’m at the “epicenter” of the online Pagan community).

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The End of Beliefnet (As We Know It)?

June 29, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 1 Comment

Religion mega-site Beliefnet, which was recently put on the block by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has been sold to investment group BN Media according to paidContent.

“This afternoon we are announcing that Beliefnet has been acquired by BN Media, LLC, which is the investment group behind Affinity4 and Cross Bridge Media, companies many of you know due to our successful working relationships with them over the past year.  This course of events begins a new chapter for Beliefnet, and it’s one that I am confident will enable us to continue our growth and prosperity alongside an organization that is so well-versed in our category and committed to our mission of being the leading provider of inspiration and faith-based content in a multi-faith environment.”

Unsurprisingly, layoffs are now happening (so they can “continue growing”, naturally). But who, exactly, is BN Media? What’s their agenda? While there were concerns that Rupert Murdoch would steer Beliefnet in a more conservative direction, those fears were diminished somewhat by the fact that News Corp. is a vast (largely) secular media empire. But BN Media seems to be a different sort of owner, if their two largest initiatives, Affinity4 and Cross Bridge, are any indication. In short, it seems they are a conservative “family friendly” Christian group. All you have to do is pay attention to all the subtle buzz-words.

“Cross Bridge is committed to providing high quality, inspirational programming and resources, bridging the gaps in current mainstream media, while conveying uplifting messages and nurturing positive outlooks … Through our partnership with FOX Networks Group of News Corporation, Cross Bridge is integrating value-based legacy media programming with an interactive, new media experience.”

“What groups do you support? We work with many charities and ministries and other organizations such as booster clubs. Most promote, support and protect traditional family values and religious and constitutional freedoms. Click here for a listing of some of our charities and ministries.”

When you do click to see what groups Affinity4 supports, it’s a who’s who of conservative Christian organizations. Focus on the Family, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Promise Keepers, Concerned Women for America, and Christian Broadcasting Network, to name just a sampling. Now, BN Media, and its holdings, can support whomever they like, but it doesn’t paint a very rosy picture of future interfaith interactions and diverse viewpoints on Beliefnet. How long will the new pay-masters tolerate a Pagan blog? Not to mention all the New Age stuff. Will Rev. Barry Lynn soon find himself increasingly uncomfortable?

Aside from concerns over Beliefnet’s new owners scrubbing the site clean and “family friendly”, the big issue is if Beliefnet can ever get its mojo back in an increasingly crowded field. With Patheos, Religion Dispatches, the Huffington Post’s religion section, CNN‘s just-launched Belief Blog, and the Newsweek/Washington Post-supported On Faith all looking to draw folks interested in religious news and views, will Beliefnet end up like MySpace (another News Corp. acquisition)? Perennially behind the curve and slowly leaking readership/users? Whatever happens from now, I think it may be the beginning of the end of Beliefnet as we currently know it (and I feel fine).

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: , , , , , 1 Comment

Beliefnet’s on the Block, Who’s Buying?

June 2, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 2 Comments

It isn’t making the religion blogs and newswires, and I would have missed it entirely if Get Religion hadn’t mentioned it, but religion mega-site Beliefnet is being put up for sale by News Corp. (owner of Fox News) after acquiring it only three years ago.

“It looks like News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has lost faith in Beliefnet. After only three years of ownership, the media giant is seeking a buyer for Beliefnet, a website devoted to religion and spirituality. The decision was first reported by AllThingsD and confirmed by people with knowledge of the situation. News Corp. acquired Beliefnet for an undisclosed sum in 2007, with plans to integrate it with the company’s other faith-based units, including HarperCollin’s Zondervan unit, which publishes bibles and Christian titles such as Rick Warren’s best-selling “The Purpose Driven Life.” Fox Home Entertainment also operates Fox Faith, a label that distributes family films and Christian DVDs to retailers and through churches and ministries … As with other digital assets, News Corp. has decided to jettison Beliefnet as no longer fitting with its strategy.“

Back in 2007 I was rather pessimistic about Rupert Murdoch’s company acquiring the site; I didn’t think it would lead to some new synergistic golden age for the fiscally unstable religion hub.

“No doubt promises of independence and a glorious future are forthcoming, but I’m not sure this will be good for the already-marginalized religious minorities who were once strong supporters of Beliefnet. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, over the next few years, Beliefnet grows ever-more Christian and conservative in tone. A “family friendly” site to help promote Fox Faith films and hype new Christian book releases from (coincidentally) Zondervan.”

In defense of the new owners, they did fiscally stabilize the site, and tried their best to adapt to the new blogging and social networking culture that grew up in the years since Beliefnet first launched (blogging was still in its infancy back in 1999). They even installed a Pagan blogger (Gus diZerega) back in 2009, after years of complaints over how the site treated its non-Christian communities. But the question now is, who wants Beliefnet? While they are still the most popular religion site on the Internet, their numbers have been softening of late, shedding nearly 400,000 regular visitors in the three years under News Corp. Some, like former Beliefnet News Producer Ira Rifkin, think the site may have run its course.

“Beliefnet has made itself irrelevant and US magazine down-market by dropping all serious content – even its blogs have lost all their umph. How many bumper-sticker-depth, saccharin lead features consisting of no more than – literally – “inspirational” one-liners, cheery photos of flowery fields or “15 Love Lessons from ‘Sex and the City’” can you run before serious readers looking for consequential spiritual/religious insights to help guide their actions realize how trite it all is, get bored and log off, taking sponsors with them? Beliefnet is worth very little in today’s media market. Empress Oprah might be a good match, except she has no need to spend money on a much inferior version of her own product line. In short, Beliefnet may have run its course. We’ll see.”

For the record, today’s “headline” features are “Movie Mom Looks Ahead At New Family Films”, “Support For Military Families”, “How To Treat Yourself Royally”, and “12 Ways To Be  A Better Listener”. It’s not exactly what you would call gripping, hard-hitting, or even fascinating. Still, 2.4 million readers is nothing to sneeze at, and that might tempt a news or media outlet to acquire the site/brand and do something new with it. But whoever acquires Beliefnet will be dealing with a very changed religious-news and information landscape. Where once the site stood alone, they now have competitors in an expanding God(s)-beat on the Internet. Patheos, Religion Dispatches, the Huffington Post’s new religion section, CNN‘s just-launched Belief Blog, and the Newsweek/Washington Post-supported On Faith are just some of the sites it must now contend with, not to mention the ever-thriving religious blogosphere where folks can find original and curated news to fit their particular social and theological niche.

So, to echo Get Religion’s question, who do you think should acquire Beliefnet? What changes should the prospective buyer(s) make if they do pick it up? Should Beliefnet survive at all? Will it go down in history as an early failed experiment in new media attempts to cover religion and spirituality, or will it rise once more and keep its spot at the top?

Filed Under: Paganism, Religion Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments
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