Study: Media Ignores Religious Progressives

A Media Matters study has confirmed what many of us have long believed: that the mainstream media consistently links religion with conservatism and secularism with liberalism.

Quoting the report, here are the findings in a nutshell:

• Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.

• On television news — the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS — conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

• In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

This overrepresentation of right-wing voices tells religious Americans that “people like them” are conservatives.  The result for the religious center-left is death by framing: Christian equals right-wing equals Republican.

In this environment, conservatives don’t need to defend their reading of Scripture.  It’s simply assumed that abortion and homosexuality are key biblical issues, while economic justice, creation care, racial righteousness, and international cooperation have little or nothing to do with the Christian faith.

In an America where most Christians don’t really know what’s in the Bible, media messages are a big part of where people get their impression of what it means to be a person of faith.  So far, the media’s telling a biased story — effectively prohibiting the rest of us from making our argument.

That’s why the frame game matters: if religious Democrats scream in the forest and no one hears us, we might as well not have made a sound.