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HINKLE: Media Matters funded to target SBC leaders

June 7, 2012 By The Pathway

There are liberals in the news media who want to silence Southern Baptists and anyone who espouses a biblical worldview toward our culture or public policy. Most leaders in the convention know this and I suspect most Southern Baptists do as well. We had better.

For some time liberal media have targeted Southern Baptist leaders. We know because of terrific reporting by the online publication “The Daily Caller.” In February, with little or no fanfare, it reported that the liberal Media Matters for America organization had received a $50,000 grant to monitor and attack conservative religious news outlets, particularly talk radio. While there may have been more, two Southern Baptists were among those reportedly targeted: The late Jerry Falwell and Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who hosted a daily radio program until he abruptly announced last year that he was ending the show, citing his desire to spend more time with family. It is unclear what precisely Media Matters has done and if its activity has had anything to do with Southern Baptist radio personalities who address the culture through a biblical worldview.

Media Matters received the grant from the ARCA Foundation, a 60-year philanthropy that funds Democratic causes. The foundation gave Media Matters the $50,000 “to support a Religious Broadcasting Project to expand the monitoring and fact-checking of religious broadcasts, “The Daily Caller” reported, citing Media Matters’ 2006 tax return as the source. The ARCA Foundation was endowed in 1952 by Nancy Susan Reynolds, the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company tycoon’s last surviving child. Nancy Reynolds Bagley, Reynolds’ granddaughter, chaired ARCA’s board and according to the foundation’s website, Bagley worked for health care reform in the Clinton administration before gaining a position on the Democratic National Committee.

ARCA’s leftist positions are plentiful. It has provided millions of dollars in grants aimed at getting the U.S. government to normalize relations with the communist government in Cuba, slipped money to the far-left publication Mother Jones, widely read by young people who overwhelmingly supported President Obama in the 2008 election and delivered $400,000 in grants to the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a supposed non-profit that has deceptively campaigned for President Obama, prompting congressional inquiry.

Media Matters routinely prints unfavorable articles featuring theologically conservative evangelical leaders. Since 2006, “The Daily Caller” reports that at least 65 articles about the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) have been published, mostly critical of CBN founder Pat Robertson. The late Falwell and Focus on the Family President emeritus James Dobson have been regular targets of negative stories by Media Matters.

So who is Media Matters?

It was started in 2004 by liberal journalist and author David Brock. Its influence within the Democratic Party is believed to be significant. It has been reported that Media Matters regularly communicates with political operatives within the Obama administration. It recently came under congressional scrutiny because of its advocacy on behalf of the Democratic Party, something that is illegal for a tax-exempt 501c3 non-profit organization. The New York Post reported in February that Media Matters intends to spend $20 million this year in a campaign to influence news coverage that would be favorable to President Obama.

Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, told “The Christian Post” online publication in February that Mohler had been targeted and that many in the broadcast business knew Media Matters was waging attack campaigns on ministry leaders with whom they disagreed. New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg reported in 2008 how Media Matters had become a new weapon for the Democratic Party, employing “rapid-fire, technologically sophisticated means to call out what it considers ‘conservative misinformation’ on air or in print, then feed it to a Rolodex of reporters, cable channels and bloggers hungry for grist.”

It should be noted that Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) President Richard Land was recently reprimanded and his weekly radio show “Richard Land Live” discontinued by order of the ERLC’s board of trustees after a liberal blogger accused Land of reading newspaper articles on his radio program without giving proper attribution. That charge came as some people complained about Land commenting on the controversial Trayvon Martin shooting death, a politically-charged topic made so by liberal African-Americans like the New York Times’ Charles Blow, MSNBC “commentator” Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

For months conservative news outlets have warned that playing “the race card” was going to be an integral part of the strategy to re-elect President Obama. The Martin case fit that narrative, some conservatives have charged, especially after Obama himself weighed-in on the shooting. If the Democrats can raise sensitivities regarding race, critics theorize, then it will be easier to paint anyone who disagrees with President Obama as having “racial motivations” in the lead-up to the fall campaign. I found it interesting that no one questioned the truthfulness of Land’s comments, only that they were inappropriate and insensitive.

With Mohler’s and Land’s programs now off the air, Southern Baptists voices on national radio addressing the culture and public policy matters from a biblical worldview perspective is greatly diminished. This is unfortunate. The Southern Baptist Convention should have someone on the air immediately to fill this void. We must winsomely engage in matters that impact our society, being ever mindful that there are elements who want us silenced. While we must be “gentle as a dove,” we had better be “wise as a serpent.”

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