Example number 1,236,457 of bias in the press..
Mary Madigan
Via AP
Anti-gay protests at GI funeralsThere are so many things that are wrong with this article, it's hard to figure out where to begin..SMYRNA, Tenn. - Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.
The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars' down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."..
..The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination, is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.
The church members carried signs and shouted things such as "God hates fags" and "God hates you."
About 10 church members protested near Smyrna United Methodist Church and nearly 20 stood outside the National Guard Armory in Ashland City. Members have demonstrated at other soldier funerals across the nation.
The biggest problem: the clearly psychotic Reverend Phelps is walking the streets, a danger to himself and others. Our mental health agencies are, for the 1,236,457th + time, demonstrating ignorance and incompetence that borders on the criminal.
But back to the near-criminal idiocies of the press. Here's what they always get wrong about the Phelps "church".
- Mainstream and fundamentalist Christians have denounced Phelps and his cult as a producer of anti-gay propaganda and violence-inspiring hate speech. His cult is composed of members of his own family who live within a family 'compound'. The press knows this, but they choose to call this psychotic family a "Church"
- Fred Phelps is a registered Democrat. and the members of his cult have had very strong ties to the Democratic Party. From Wikipedia:
In the 1980s, the Phelps family were strong political allies with then-senator Al Gore. The home of Fred Jr., Phelps' eldest son, located in the Westboro compound, acted as Gore's campaign quarters for one of his senate races, and the Westboro compound was host to a fundraiser. Numerous photos exist on the internet of Fred Phelps Jr. and his second wife, Betty Phelps-Schurle, posing with Al and Tipper Gore in Phelps Jr.'s home. Phelps also served as a Gore delegate on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988.
The article could also be written this way..
Anti-war democrat protests at GI funerals...and it would be entirely factual. It would also be as biased as the AP tripe.SMYRNA, Tenn. - Democrats and anti-war activists who claim that God is punishing American soldiers for defending this country brought their anti-America message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.
The Democrats were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the activists' cars down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."..
Anti-war activist Fred Phelps, a registered Democrat who was invited to (and who attended) the Clinton/Gore inaugural party in 1993, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God. Phelps' cult has been condemned by mainstream and fundamentalist Christians, and is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.
These anti-war democrats carried signs and shouted things such as "God hates America", "Thank God for 9/11" and "God hates you."
About 10 Democrats protested near Smyrna United Methodist Church and nearly 20 stood outside the National Guard Armory in Ashland City. Members have demonstrated at other soldier funerals across the nation.
The original AP article ends with one quote from "Danny Cotton, 56", who says, "If they were protesting the government, I might even join them," If Mr. Cotton weren't fed on a constant diet of half-truths and bias from the media he would realize that Fred Phelps does hate Bush and America. Phelps has offered support to Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein.
If baby-boomer Cotton realized that the press has been selling him similar half-truths about other totalitarian/extremist groups for decades, he might begin to rethink his views.
Or maybe not.
I oppose locking him up. Unless he actually threatens the person and/or property of others, he has the right to express his ideas, totally inverted morally as they are. Let him speak, I say. Let it all hang out, as they used to say back in my youth. Let every American see this reductio ad absurdam of the collectivist mentality, of the hatred of the good for being the good.
Through interviews with his children, family members, congregants, friends, and enemies, an image emerges of Phelps as a ferocious child-abuser and wife-beater who may have been instrumental in the death of his son Fred Phelps Jr.'s lover/possible first wife, a 17-year old girl named Debbie Valgos. Most of these claims are supported by two of Phelps' sons and one of his daughters, but are denied by their other siblings, who are not estranged from Phelps.
He just sounds like a psycho.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
what are some alternative nouns for phelps and his group, if not "church members"? i don't think any sane person reading the article would conflate phelps and mainstream christians in america, but assuming that there was widespread misunderstanding, how would you suggest the article be written?
I have argued with people who think Phelps is simply the "most honest" Christian, the one who "really" represents "the Religious Right."
The fact that they call it Westboro Baptist without noting that it's in no way affiliated with any mainline Baptist group is annoying, as is the fact that he's sometimes called a "conservative Christian," not in this piece but in others I've seen.
The press loves this creep, can't get enough of him--this despite the fact that he has an incredibly tiny following, and has been repudiated by pretty much everyone in the Christian community. Me? I'd throw him in with David Duke, Cindy Sheehan, and the other lunatic "anti-war activists." But I'm biased that way.
Rev. Fred Phelps is a favorite whipping-boy of the media because he and his followers hold up colorful signs saying "--- Hates F--s", "--- Hates America", etc., but he obviously has no more political influence than the Three Stooges.
Similarly, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell get mentioned a lot because they have TV shows.
It's those who fly under the radar, those who aren't on TV, that I worry about. Far, far more pernicious and mendacious than Fred Phelps are Lou Sheldon of the "Traditional Values Coalition", Robert Knight of the "Concerned Women for America", and Paul Cameron, the chief "researcher" for the "Family Research Council" and similar organizations such as the above-named. These men spend their lives spreading lies against homosexuals and advocating any law or policy they can think of to make their lives miserable. They hate homosexuals every bit as much as does Fred Phelps but they don't scream about it in the streets or on TV so they don't get noticed as they go about their dirty work.
None of this has anything to do with Christianity. None of this has any more to do with the Athanasian Creed than does the "Jews are well-poisoners" lie.
I refuse either to praise media-manufactured "saints" like Cindy Sheehan or to participate in the obligatory Two Minutes Hate against whoever is selected to be the favorite whipping-boy of the day while far deadlier enemies of freedom slip by unnoticed.
"Moon" would be my choice.
But there might be a market for a travelling show featuring the likes of this guy, and, and .... well, there are plenty of other raving lunatics that would fill up the trailers as they are transported around the country.
"Step right up, see the obnoxious posters and hear the obscenity-laden diatribes. One loonier than the next ... they are all in fine form, right here in East Armpit, Wyoming. Watch where you stand, though, the spittle is a-flyin'."
point taken. i can recall articles where they've specifically mentioned the "Baptist" part of the church name. "followers", to my mind, is probably the best alternative, followed by a caveat somewhere in the article suggesting that christian groups do not take phelps seriously. or maybe a quote from someone repudiating him. probably the most even-handed way to report on it if you were going to bother reporting on it at all. really one AP wire article should say all that needs to be said on the subject.
If we wanted to be as biased as the press, we would call them Democrats. But if we wanted to be objective, the Phelps family would work.
It was nice to play 'opposite day' with this story - to imagine what this supposedly hard news article would focus on if the author supported the war on terror and the Bush administration. I becomes a totally different story.
A lot of conservatives and liberals were suprised to find out that Phelps is a Democrat. Telling half-truths in supposedly hard-news articles has become such a habit with the press, they don't even seem to think about it. We get so used to reading their lies, we don't either.
According to Mother Jones, the Westboro Baptist church is made up of the members of the Phelps family.
The members of the Phelps family, and therefore all of the Westboro protesters have spent many years as loyal Democrats. Phelps is not just a registered Democrat, he's run for the US Senate as a Democrat and in 1992 gained "a remarkable 30.8% of the ballots cast in the Democratic primary even as he terms his opponent a "bull dike"
There is no evidence that the members of his family, ruled by this autocratic politician, have changed party membership. Given Phelps' autocratic behavior, it's doubtful that they would have.
The Phelps family certainly wouldn't support Bush. From their website:
Bloody butcher Bush thinks he can distract from these facts by taking over Babylon with his fag army. As a result of his foolishness, body bags are coming home by the truckload.
Well, when you report that a bunch of people are engaging in political activism, it might make sense to refer to them as "activists". You could call them "extreme activists" if you want to be negative. "Religious extremists" if you want more detail.
"Church members" probably includes an enormous percentage of the US population (less so among journalists), so it doesn't seem very informative.
When I think of the name Phelps, I always think of another Phelps that I like much better.
"Good morning, Mr. Phelps. This man, posing as a 'Christian' preacher, is disgracing your name. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to put him out of business by whatever means necessary. This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds." Poof!
Rollin: "Hmmm.... Seeing his fixation on the subject, he may well secretly be a homosexual himself. We could 'out' him. Jim, you and I are good-looking men. We could get him to perform fellatio on us while Cinnamon, as a beautiful Lesbian, tempts his daughters --"
Mr. Phelps: "No! That's too disgusting! That so-called 'Phelps' family is lower even than Santorum and his dog! No, I have a better idea -- much better. Barney, you're our technical expert. I want you to sneak underground and sabotage all cameras and microphones wherever he shows up. We'll thereby deny him the publicity he needs to continue his foul operation."
Barney: "Yes, Jim."
[music]
Rev. Phelps: "--- damn those fags! Every time I turn on the news or Google my name on the Internet, I see NOTHING! -- NOTHING! about us! We're getting no publicity at all! NONE! That Lou Sheldon's getting it all -- and he doesn't want it! He's being exposed for the creep he is! And all our favorite dictators are being overthrown. Some -- some secret Satanic organization -- an Impossible Mission Force -- must be behind this. If only we knew who they were!"
I do hate to give publicity to Phelps - but this article is a great illustration of how the press repeats biased half-truths over and over and over again; it's also a great illustration of how those half-truths become lies.
It's not just Phelps, it's in all their coverage of anything related to the war on terror. From today's CNN:
::::
Sharpton, Sheen visit antiwar camp
The Rev. Al Sharpton joined hundreds of war protesters camping near President Bush's ranch for an interfaith service Sunday, saying he felt compelled to meet Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who started the rally three weeks earlier.
Sheehan arrived in Bush's hometown August 6 and refused to leave until she could question the president about the war that has killed more than 1,870 U.S. service members, including her son Casey.
"I feel that it is our moral obligation to stand and to be courageous with these families, and particularly Cindy, that have become the conscience of this nation," said Sharpton, an activist and former Democratic presidential candidate.
Sharpton and Sheehan laid roses at crosses near "Camp Casey," named for Sheehan's 24-year-old son who was killed in Iraq last year.
Actor Martin Sheen, who portrays the Democratic president on NBC's "The West Wing," also met with Sheehan on Sunday.
::::
If we took out some facts and included others, the same "hard news" article would read this way:
:::
Sharpton, Stormfront visit antiwar camp
Democrat Al Sharpton, a former presidential candidate and an activist implicated in a hate-based arson attack which killed seven people, joined Stormfront and other hate groups camping near President Bush's ranch for a press conference Sunday. Sharpton said he felt compelled to meet Cindy Sheehan, the activist who started the rally three weeks earlier.
Sheehan arrived in Bush's hometown August 6 and refused to leave until she could question the president about the war that brought about what Iraqi poet Awad Nasir called "the rebirth of Iraq as a free nation."
Putting on a somber face before a swarm of paparazzi, Sharpton said "I feel that it is our moral obligation to stand and to be courageous with these families, and particularly Cindy, that have become the conscience of this nation,"
According to one Stormfront member, "What we risk doing by not showing up at the massive protests against the Bush/Neocon War for Israel is to leave the field of battle."
:::
That's an excellent, far more accurate and informative report that you just gave. Thank you. Too bad the "Walter Duranty Times" would never print it.
Just as folks would have done under similar circumstances about a century ago.
Does this make me sound like Robertson arguing the need to bury Venezuela's would-be communist before he becomes another Fidel Castro? That's good.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Michael D. - One good thing may come from promoting fact the Phelps is a Democrat. The press covered the Phelps story because they thought they could use him as an example of Christian extremism. When the world knows that Phelps is an extremist and a Democrat, when his lunacy begins to embarrass them, they may decide to ignore him.
That's good rhetoric, but have you looked at Nero's resume?
He was worse than just a major-league jerk.
How do you tell them from the 'activists' who are blowing themselves and others up in the Middle East?
Why does Phelps get so much press? Because the press can make him look like a far-right religious nut who hates something GOP elected officials are doing. Notice that they never, ever, ever mention party affiliation.
This way, they make the religious right look bad while simultaneously acting as if they hate GWB (or whichever GOPer they're attacking).
That's win-win for them.
By reading the article.
BTW, this is also how you tell them from activists who hand out bumper stickers before elections.
"activist" covers anyone engaged in political activity, which is why it's appropriate in this case. Referring to suicide bombing as political activity seems inadequate to me, but that's a bit off-topic.