ETS and SBL - Nov 19

I am in DC at the professional society meetings. Thesse are held each year at this time. We had a lively panel discussion on evangelicals and the media last Friday. In it there was discussion of how evangelicals are covered in the media, along with how media works. A lot of the discussion explained how different media work as well as their strengths and limitations. There also was much debate on how balanced such coverage was, as well as how difficult it is to get the story right, for a variety of reasons from the time one has to develop a story to questions of bias to how many different perspectives there are about faith. There also was a vigorous defense of why there is an alternative media that seeks to balance the discussion as well as whether or not more idealogical motivated outlets balkanize our public airwaves, often providing "shout shows" or food fights versus information. One panalist called them "infotainment," arguing they were more entertainment versus substance. There also was some discussion over whether the goal was to provoke discussion or get the story right (as well as an effort to define what getting it right means). All the panelists said being fair was important but also discussed how difficult that can be in certain media, given the time contraints in some froms of media (For example, in the nightly news an average story is 90 to 120 seconds). Those stories are often sound bite driven. Radio (chat) and newspapers or magazines have more space and can do a better job. Even a one hour TV special really has 40 minutes of air time to cover a story. So there are many factors at work. It was a fascinating discussion.