UK media are shutting out evangelicals and climate-change deniers

NEWS outlets in Britain, including the BBC, are treating devout Christians and climate change deniers as ‘a bunch of very strange people.’

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The result, says Graham Nicholls, above, Director of Affinity – a network of UK churches and evangelical agencies – is that the Christian voice is “a bit” lost in national mainstream media.

On national media, an evangelical, orthodox view is very rarely expressed. If it is expressed, it’s kind of given as a sort of setup for ‘Here’s a bunch of very strange people who have quite strange views.’

Nicholls, was reacting to a complaint by Conservative peer Charles Moore, above. Journalist Moore  – Margaret Thatcher’s biographer – claimed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the national broadcaster has a liberal bias, specifically on Brexit and climate change.

What I am objecting to is preaching. The BBC has decided to be a secular church and it preaches and tells us what we ought to think about things. So it tells us we shouldn’t support Brexit and we should accept climate change alarmism and we have to all kowtow to the doctrines of diversity.

Moore’s comments came after he said he faced “obstacles” within the BBC to get a climate change sceptic onto the show.

He said that even though he was a guest editor, he was having difficulties:

Trying to get all this stuff about climate change onto this programme. Obstacles come in every single time because of rulings and bureaucracy and the fact that Roger Harabin, the environment editor, is so biased.

Today host, Nick Robinson, defended his colleague and said the BBC reported the “global consensus” on climate science. He added that the BBC is regulated by Ofcom and the law when it comes to its news coverage.

Nicholls said he has “a lot of sympathy” with what Moore had to say, especially when broadened out to issues other than Brexit and climate change.

I think it’s an unquestioning acceptance of a number of things, whether it’s to do with moral issues or to do with what climate change. There’s no longer… an acceptance that some things are tentative, some things are untested.

I think the problem with that is you then become intolerant of any other views, so your whole questioning and framing of questions becomes based on a number of presumptions.

He added that there’s the danger that news media is “no longer objectively” bring news:

But actually bringing a whole set of biases and presumptions and everyone, Christian or non, is the worst for it.

In dismissing Nicholls’ and Moore’s accusation, Robinson said the broadcaster has fair news coverage, and denied the claim that the BBC told listeners not to eat meat to help the environment.

We report people who say you shouldn’t eat meat and we interview people who say you should. We are not telling people to do anything.

Do You Agree That Evangelicals and Climate Change Deniers Should Be Shut Out Of The Mainstream Media? Why or Why Not? 

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