jeudi 27 juillet 2006

I know all about "If it bleeds, it leads", but the Book of Revelation is not be a news source

Media Matters:

For the second time in three days, CNN featured a segment on the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East. The July 26 edition of CNN's Live From ... featured a nine-minute segment in which anchor Kyra Phillips discussed the Apocalypse and the Middle East with Christian authors Jerry Jenkins and Joel C. Rosenberg -- who share the view that the Rapture is nigh. At one point in the discussion, Phillips asked Rosenberg whether she needed "to start taking care of unfinished business and telling people that I love them and I'm sorry for all the evil things I've done," to which Rosenberg replied: "Well, that would be a good start." Throughout the segment, the onscreen text read: "Apocalypse Now?"

As Media Matters for America documented, the July 24 edition of CNN's Paula Zahn Now featured a segment examining what "the Book of Revelation tell[s] us about what's happening right now in the Middle East." CNN re-aired this segment the next day. Media Matters also noted that Rosenberg is just one of several conservative media figures who have identified and expounded upon the purported signs of the Apocalypse to be found in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. During his appearance on Live From ..., Rosenberg claimed that he had been invited to the White House, Capitol Hill, and the CIA to discuss the Rapture and the Middle East, and noted -- several times -- that the apocalyptic events described in his novels keep coming true.

Jenkins is co-author, with conservative activist Tim LaHaye, of the Left Behind series of books, which uses the Book of Revelation as a "framework" to tell a story of the End Times. According to a January 28, 2004, Rolling Stone article, LaHaye "prodded the Rev. Jerry Falwell to found the Moral Majority" and co-founded the Council for National Policy, "a secretive group of wealthy donors that has funneled billions of dollars to right-wing Christian activists." LaHaye's wife, Beverly LaHaye, founded the conservative group Concerned Women for America.


One would expect Fox News to invite apolcalyptic Christian preachers on and identify them as "Middle East Analysis", and indeed they have not disappointed. But sorry, folks, this is not hard news.

I guess there are no pretty missing white women to report on, and Christie Brinkley's divorce isn't worth expending any more ink on; after all, she IS 52, not 18.

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