As strange as it may sound, the head of Focus on the Family is trying to find just the right place in his Colorado Springs office to put a framed copy of an editorial from the New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n Under the headline \u201cSuper Bowl Censorship<\/a>,\u201d it defended the Christian group\u2019s right to buy a prime chunk of airtime, even if the ad focused<\/a> on the decision by an ailing Pam Tebow to ignore her doctors\u2019 advice to abort her fifth child \u2014 a son named Tim. Protests by the National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America and others, it said, were \u201cpuzzling and dismaying.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe would-be censors are on the wrong track,\u201d proclaimed the Times<\/em>. \u201cInstead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about. \u2026 Viewers can watch and judge for themselves. Or they can get up from the couch and get a sandwich.\u201d<\/p>\n Where should Focus on the Family President Jim Daly place this memento? After all, it represents a major event during the final days of founder Dr. James Dobson, the child psychologist who over three decades built one of America\u2019s most powerful radio franchises and evangelical ministries. Dobson\u2019s farewell broadcast was Feb. 26th.<\/p>\n Daly, who became Focus on the Family president in 2005, is thinking about putting the framed editorial between two photos. In one, Daly is standing with President George W. Bush. In the other, he is standing with President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll find a spot,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would be a rather symbolic place to put it.\u201d<\/p>\n Daly has worked for Focus on the Family for two decades, focusing on building a global audience of 200 million listeners. He is well aware that some loyalists on the legendary Focus on the Family mailing list \u2014 a major resource when raising money or inspiring grassroots support on hot issues \u2014 are worried about recent strategic moves.<\/p>\n Take, for example, Daly\u2019s decision to attend an Obama White House conference on fatherhood. Some also questioned the decision not to fight CBS over the right to explicitly mention abortion in the Super Bowl ad.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to underestimate their concerns,\u201d said Daly. \u201cThere are people who want to see more of the hard-hitting approach. The thing is, I\u2019m not sure that approach still works today.\u201d<\/p>\n While it\u2019s impossible to say if Focus on the Family will take another Super Bowl plunge, the mainstream-media approach used in the Tebow family ad is a sign to what lies ahead, and not just because the Heisman Trophy winner will soon be playing in nearby Denver.<\/p>\n The goal all along was to use the brief advertisement to point viewers toward a longer version of the Tebow story at FocusOnTheFamily.com<\/a>, said spokesman Gary Schneeberger. Thus, the crucial post-Super Bowl numbers were these \u2014 92 million of the 106 million who watched the game told researchers they saw the Tebow ad. Among those who did, 6 percent said the spot and the furor surrounding it made them think twice about their beliefs on abortion. In all, about 1.5 million people went online to watch the more detailed Tebow feature<\/a>.<\/p>\n Daly and Schneeberger insisted that there was no sneaky, brilliant strategy to hide the ad\u2019s contents, other than their desire to keep pressure off Tebow as he prepared for his final college bowl game. Nevertheless, a giant media storm was triggered by an early report that Focus on the Family was planning a Super Bowl ad, coupled with a later wire-service story that the Tebows were involved. The result, said Schneeberger, was the equivalent of $32 million worth of free ink and airtime in national media.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people who didn\u2019t approve of the ad that they had never seen ended up doing all of our talking points for us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have to say anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n The key lesson, agreed Daly, was that it\u2019s possible to \u201creach out and hold a dialogue\u201d with an audience larger than the Focus on the Family mailing list. The Super Bowl project proved that the ministry could frame a message in such a way that \u201cpeople outside of our niche had a chance to catch it and it does appear that some caught it. We think that\u2019s progress.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As strange as it may sound, the head of Focus on the Family is trying to find just the right place in his Colorado Springs office to put a framed copy of an editorial from the New York Times. Under the headline \u201cSuper Bowl Censorship,\u201d it defended the Christian group\u2019s right to buy a prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[97,196,1534,468,1544,708,733,836,866],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godbeat","tag-barack-obama","tag-christian-media","tag-evangelicals","tag-james-dobson","tag-politics","tag-radio","tag-religious-right","tag-super-bowl","tag-tim-tebow"],"yoast_head":"\n