David M Haskell, Through a Lens Darkly: How the News Media Perceive and Portray Evangelicals, Clements Academic, 2009.
I was sent this book by The Theological Book Review to review. That I had to not only read the book but also, since its my first time reviewing for TBR also be fairly positive, is I take it payback for some heinous crime that I have unknowingly committed. In order words, that this is not a good book is a significant understatement, although should what i've submitted be published you may need to read between the lines to discern that.I have a post in my drafts which I may finish sometime outling one of the reasons I take issue with Haskell's thesis and his appropriation of Frame Theory.
Briefly put however, Haskellargues that Canadian evangelicals are
discriminated against by the major Television news media in Canada with
the result that Evangelicals in Canada are repeatedly presented in a
negative light which he attempts to evidence on the basis of surveying
a decade's coverage of evangelicals, together with a survey of news
professional's personal responses to a questionaire. Being a Brit it
will not come as much of a surprise that I don't spent much time
watching Canadian news coverage so I don't know first hand the state of
the subject in question but it seems clear to me that Haskell has made
a bold accusation but has simply failed to provide the evidential base
both in terms of empirical evidence and methodological approaches to
justify this. In fact, I would not be surprised if evangelicals in
Canada do get short shrift on occassion but Haskell has done nothing to
convince me of an inherent institutional (aka liberal elite) bias, I'd
be interested in some first hand experiences though so Frank (Freedom Log), Dave (Rattigan Writes) consider yourself tagged.
