Does the media have an anti-Christian bias?

by Maria Kelso | The Heritage Foundation

In Prodigal Press: Confronting the Anti-Christian Bias of the American News Media, Warren Cole Smith, journalist and author, explains how a liberal worldview has pervaded America’s mainstream media and how its anti-Christian worldview is influencing American society.

“Mass media is dominant in our culture today, and it has a profound impact on the way we think,” Smith said at a recent Heritage event.

According to Smith, many of America’s most well-known 19th-century newspapers openly professed Christianity. Smith explained that even the New York Times’ founder was a Christian who opposed abortion in the editorial and news section of his newspaper.

Over the past 150 years, Smith asserted that progressive ideology and changes in politics, technology, and culture have permeated America’s news media, creating a strong anti-Christian bias.

“The Times, today, regularly editorializes in favor of same-sex marriage and abortion,” Smith said.

“Recently, Times columnist Thomas Friedman equated the Tea Party to Hezbollah. FellowTimes columnist Joe Nocera did him one better, saying ‘Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people,’” Smith explained.

Smith believes that Christians must be engaged, “I believe that journalism is the air war of our time. … I continue to believe that while we may be few in number, with God’s help, we will be enough.”

The author of numerous books, Smith is the associate publisher of WORLD magazine, publisher and editor of WORLD news service, a news organization dedicated to providing accurate stories from a Christian perspective, and contributor to one of the world’s most widely used college journalism textbooks, Public Relations.