6 TV networks. Tens of millions of viewers. 2,000 radio stations. 85 percent growth since 1998.
Evanglical broadcasting. Read this Columbia Journalism Review article.
They were distoring and propagandizing Schiavo for 3 years before she hit the mainstream. Republican senators have appeared on their stations to denounce judges and promote the "nuclear option."
It's likely that Christian broadcasters have helped drive . . . the surge in "value voters" and the drive to sustain Terri Schiavo's life, a story that was incubated in evangelical media three years before it hit the mainstream. . . . They've been courted by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Mel Gibson, and George W. Bush.
The role that evangelicals are credited with playing in the recent election seems only to have improved broadcasters' access to power. During the opening session of the 2005 NRB convention, Wright described a recent lobbying excursion to Capitol Hill. "We got into rooms we've never been in before," he said. "We got down on the floor of the Senate and prayed over Hillary Clinton's desk."
more pull quotes on the flip
A parade of senators -- all of them Republican -- made their way into the studio, to go on camera advocating the nuclear option. During his interview, broadcast as part of NewsWatch's inaugural Washington, D.C., program, Trent Lott stood with studio lights glinting off the American flag pin on his lapel, and held up a scrap of paper with a list of senators' names and how they intended to vote on the initiative. The tally seemed to be stacking up in his favor. Pat Robertson, who interviewed Lott, asked no tough questions and offered not even a passing nod to opposing viewpoints. Instead, Robertson scored Democrats for trying to "eliminate religious values from America" by blocking the appointment of conservative judges.
Over the last decade, Christian TV networks have added tens of millions of homes to their distribution lists by leaping onto satellite and cable systems. The number of religious radio stations -- the vast majority of which are evangelical -- has grown by about 85 percent since 1998 alone. They now outnumber rock, classical, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and jazz stations combined.
Salem Communications, which started with around 200 stations, now airs on 1,100 -- seven times as many as broadcast National Public Radio programs. USA Radio, which in the beginning had just a handful of news affiliates, now has more than 800. Its news also can be heard on two XM Satellite Radio stations and Armed Forces Radio. USA Radio's rapid growth is due, in part, to the fact that many mainstream stations are picking up its programming.
While Terri Schiavo's name appeared in the mainstream national media only sporadically before this year, her case has been a top story on Christian news and talk programs for much of the last three years, as it combines two issues that are of critical importance to religious conservatives -- the power of the courts and the "sanctity of life. . . . Some newscasts reported as fact her parents' contested claim that she tried to utter the words "I want to live" before her feeding tube was pulled for the last time."
The turmoil gripping the Middle East has proven to be a particularly appealing topic for shows like the International Intelligence Briefing and Prophecy in the News, which interpret world events -- be it the rise of the European Union or the Asian tsunami -- in light of biblical prophecy. This approach tends to cast events that flow from controversial human choices as the natural and inevitable march of destiny. Prophecy-focused shows suggest that the war in Iraq was foretold in the Bible, for instance.
Gibson began appearing regularly on Christian news and talk shows in the months leading up to the The Passion's original release -- part of a well-coordinated marketing campaign that leaned heavily on Christian radio and TV. Christian networks ran hundreds of promotional spots and behind-the-scenes specials on the film. It was a fruitful partnership for Gibson, who has watched The Passion become the highest-grossing R-rated film in U.S. box office history. As he told those at the 2005 NRB conference, "It was largely because of the people in this broad organization that the film was able to get out there and be seen."