The Media Research Center (Alexandria, Virginia) reports that in over 1,000 hours of first-run prime-time TV broadcasting last year on the four major networks, religion came up only 116 times. Lay men and women shown practicing their faith were depicted unfavorably by a 68 to 18 percent margin. Clergy fared just slightly better (?) with 59 percent unfavorable and 15 percent favorable. The missing percentages were rated as “neutral” depictions.
Film critic Michael Medved called the study’s finding troubling, but went on to report that there were signs that the pattern was changing in both the television and movie industries. We’ll wait for the numbers.
– JP
