Is Watching secular TV incompatible with being a Christian?
Catholics Unplug your Televisions
CUT
Christians Unplug your Televisions
Most Catholics have watched the TV all their lives, however in the last few years there has been a marked change. The producers of many programmes seem to be pushing the barriers of what’s acceptable to be received into peoples homes. At the same time they attack the Catholic Church for upholding standards that the same producers feel are out of date. We feel that they are attacking the Catholic Church because her teaching is diametrically opposed to what the TV shows us.
Anti-Catholic Bias
We believe in recent years the Church and her teachings have been systematically attacked by broadcasters particularly by the BBC.
We have written letters of complaint but all we got back were vague platitudes and bland denials. They have said they do not recognise what we are talking about, well that quite frankly insults our intelligence. The following are just a few of the broadcast incidents which have upset Catholics in the last two years.
BBC Radio 4 & BBC Radio 5 Live regularly attack the Church’s family-orientated values. Quite often they will only interview Catholic dissidents on certain issues, particularly on issues of sexual morality (which seem to be their main interest). They have even edited the interviews of Church spokesman Clifford Longley to the detriment of their arguments.
BBC 1’s The Virgin Mary: this programme should be a lesson to all Catholics on how they present programmes on matters sacred to our faith. This programme broadcast just before Christmas 2002. There was hardly any meditation of traditional teachings and values for the festive season.
Channel 4’s Good Friday - a programme on Elizabeth I. It was very biased against Catholic Mary. The old myth about Good Queen Bess and Bloody Mary continues.
BBC TV Channel 4’s A profile on Cardinal Ratzinger: this programme is a typical example of BBC’s self-proclaimed but specious assertion to even-handedness. For example the presenter interviewed an Oxford Catholic Theology tutor who said that there is a great revival in the Southern Europe - it’s the North that’s the Sick Man of Europe and that there is no problem in the Third World. The presenter contradicted him completely after the interview. The BBC present their views as facts when there is no one to contradict them. This shallow duplicity is almost standard screenplay for the modern BBC documentary when dealing with the Catholic Church. The programme seemed to be really about Hans Kung and his views about the Church and Cardinal Ratzinger.
BBC TV Channel 4 - The Celibacy Debate, This programme followed hard on the heels of the profile on Cardinal Ratzinger. The panel balance did not seem to be achieved, therefore to call this a debate was ambitious.
BBC Radio 5 Live - 24th August 03: the BBC was subjective with the news. The BBC went to great lengths to report on the death of a Catholic priest in America who was a paedophile whilst totally ignoring the case of the choirmaster at St Paul’s. This item came from the Daily Telegraph.
Many Catholics believe that the following programmes show the true extent of anti-Catholic bias at the BBC. For pure vindictive spite against the Catholic Church it would be hard to top this. Why were these broadcasts made on the eve of the John-Paul II 25th anniversary of becoming Pope? Was it spoiling tactics at a time of joy felt by Catholics at this time?
BBC Panorama’s Sex and the Holy City, in which they actually had the temerity to blame the African AIDS crises on Catholic moral teaching. Perhaps it’s the BBC programmes that seem to encourage sex outside of marriage, that help promote promiscuity. Therefore it’s their programmes which are the real cause of the AIDS crisis.
BBC Kenyon Confronts which raked over old and well-aired allegations of child abuse broadcast on prime time BBC TV on the eve of the Pope's Jubilee celebrations.
Can Condoms Kill? Following the attack on Catholic teaching in the Panorama programme Sex and the Holy City Cardinal Lopez Trujillo wrote ‘Family Values Versus Safe Sex’ in which he championed abstinence before marriage, and fidelity within, as being the only real way to stop the AIDS crisis and not condoms, which have never been proven completely safe. The BBC seemed stung by this reasoned and well-researched report and produced another Panorama programme (27 June 2004) on the subject ‘Can Condoms Kill?’
What of the future? Will the BBC withdraw Popetown, the cartoon that shows the Pope as infantile, and bouncing around the Vatican on a pogo stick? If the BBC does not pull the plug on this, more and more Catholics are going to pull the plug on them. This also means that the BBC must not allow it to be distributed through out the rest of the world as well. They made it with money from the licence fee so they must withdraw it. To sign a petition goto http://www.stop-popetown.org.uk/
Has Aunty BBC become the Wicked Witch of the West?
Book Review:
Can we trust the BBC?
By Robin Aitken, Continuum, 2007
‘So strong is the BBC’s support for abortion that it can now be considered one of the Corporation’s ‘core values.’
The BBC has a reputation for fairness and impartiality, and
because of this it is quite simply the most famous and trusted media brand
in the world. It’s has a reputation for honest and accurate journalism. However,
this book paints a very different picture of the BBC. Its author Robin Aitken
is a former journalist and reporter and spent 25 years working at all levels
in the BBC.
What emerges in this book is a BBC that is very biased indeed especially in
areas of sexual morality, politics and religion. In fact Mr Aitkens argues
that the Corporation has an all pervasive anti-religious culture and that
this fact impedes its ability to be impartial. In reading this book one gets
the impression that the BBC is especially pro-left politically, pro-libertine,
pro-abortion and is above all anti-Catholic. But why should the BBC be so
anti-Catholic for surely the BBC has no particular reason to bias against
any religion? Yet the reason that emerges in this book is that its views on
sexual ethics are diametrically opposite to that of Catholicism. In particular,
because the Catholic Church speaks out strongly on the world stage against
abortion, homosexuality and contraception she will always be singled out for
attack. Aitkens highlights programmes like Woman’s Hour because its presenters
and programming have been fervently in favour of ‘abortion rights’. He also
states that ‘So strong is the BBC’s support for abortion that it can now be
considered one of the Corporation’s ‘core values’1.
To work at the BBC, the ‘tribe’ as Aitkens terms its employees must sign up
to a range of attitudes and opinions. These would be left-liberal but this
does not mean being tolerant; they must be the opposite to ‘conservative’.
With regards to BBC presenters making controversial statements, he states
‘It just not true to say that people who publicly espouse ‘highly controversial
views’ cannot be BBC presenters. It is only certain controversial views which
matter’2.
The number of BBC high-profile journalists who are left wing, out numbers
the others by about ten to one. Impartiality regarding the BBC and politics?
Hardly. In fact there seems to be a happy merry go round of left wing jobs
for the boys between the BBC, New Labour and the Guardian newspaper.
Perhaps what should be of most concern to the Catholic Church is the BBC’s
global reach with all its secular, pro-abortion, and anti-Catholic propaganda.
It has the BBC World News 24 TV on various international satellite systems,
the World Service Radio, broadcast in 43 languages. The BBC website which
also streams BBC’s British Radio and some of its TV to the world. All this
is achieved with the help of the guaranteed licence fee, although there are
some adverts on its international 24 hour news TV channels.
Can we trust the BBC? ultimately reads as one man quest to try and restore
the dignity, respect, and impartiality to an institution the has become so
biased, and yet remains so powerful that it poses a danger to the truthful
reporting of current affairs and world news, not only to Britain but on a
global scale. We recommend this book to anyone who is concerned by the power
and influence of the BBC. Can we trust the BBC to be fair, balanced and impartial?
This book says no we certainly cannot.
References from Can we trust the BBC? 2007, 1 p.xxx, 2, p63.
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