All week the CBS Early Show has been doing promos about how its Saturday program would be featuring a segment on the historicity of the Easter story, "Fact or Faith?" When I first heard this I groaned, because this is the same TV show that regularly broadcasts absolutely ridiculous, sensationalistic and often contradictory medical factoids -- supermarket-tabloid stuff along the lines of "Is Your Coffee Killing You?" (usually followed a couple of weeks later by another breathless announcement, "Coffee -- It's Good For You!") -- as "medical news"; this annoys me so much, in fact, that the last time they featured one of these dumb segments I e-mailed CBS and told them to stop insulting viewers' intelligence.
So, anyway, I tuned in this morning and watched the maybe three-minute discussion of the Gospels' historicity. It was, bar none, the frigging stupidest interview I have ever heard in my life, and that includes interviews with politicians. Here's a nano-version of the interview:
So -- did this stuff in the Bible actually happen?
Um...we really don't know.
Actually, that wasn't the nano-version; that was pretty much the interview.
They really should not let morning-show TV personalities anywhere near the topics of religion or science, because most of them can't handle either. And the producers and editors of such shows should be subjected to slappage. Idiots.
3 comments:
O, Preach It, Sister! And when we're through with CBS, let's get after the National Geographic channel as well!!
Yeah, I've been monitoring the Philadelphia Inquirer's coverage of religious matters recently, commenting about it on my blog. For anyone with more than a casual aquaintence with biblical scholarship, theology or the church's tradition, most popular news coverage of religion is about as useful or enlightening as the cover of the National Enquirer (minus the aliens). It is disappointing, of course, because these news organizations have an audience much larger than our churches do, but they squander the opportunity to do anything intelligent . . .
With several theological seminaries and university religion departments in the Philadelphia area, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article about response to the Gospel of Judas. Did the reporter interview academics from the various schools? No. They stood outside of daily Mass and interviewed people as they left. Then they went to the shopping center across the street from the church and asked a few more people. With the opportunity to get various scholarly (and faithful) perspectives, the Inquirer instead asked people who's only knowledge of the Gospel of Judas was based on that morning's newspaper or the 2 minute spot on the evening news. Argh.
I really, really wonder what is the deal with their medical "expert". Seriously, she has to be married to one of the producers...since she's on daily. She must be salaried. And she's so useless!
It's odd that the only TV i watch anymore is about 20 minutes of whatever morning show...because i have the TV set to wake me up.
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