Integrity in Broadcasting

Dear Lord; Good afternoon Father.  As You’re aware Lord, I’ve had something on my mind the last few days that’s been bothering me.  The funny thing is, my aggravations are regarding an event I’ve never really had much interest in; the Super Bowl.

I’ve never been a big football fan.  In fact, other than a couple of games I went to when I was in college, I’ve never even attended a live game… It just never really caught my interest.  This year really wasn’t much different, until I read a news story about a commercial that had been rejected by Fox Broadcasting Company for “delivering a religious message”.  As I’ve seen some pretty racy and scary Super Bowl commercials over the years, I went and sought out the “offending” segment :

Really??  This was deemed to contain too much religious doctrine??  Wow… I am so terribly sorry Father.  We’ve truly fallen from You as a society.  From a country that has “In God We Trust” on our currency, this truly makes no sense to me.  Fox certainly isn’t worried about offending viewers with the content on shows like “Family Guy” or Fox Sports’ Internet show “Cubed”, but they’re concerned that someone might take a reference to a Bible verse as an affront?

Fox issued a statement last week that stated :

“As a matter of company policy, Fox Broadcasting Company does not accept advertising from religious organizations for the purpose of advancing particular beliefs or practices. The Fixed Point Foundation was provided with our guidelines prior to their submission of storyboards for our review. Upon examination, the advertising submitted clearly delivers a religious message and as a result has been rejected.”

Ok, so the reason they’re airing commercials for the new movie “The Rite” is because it’s not from a religious organization?  Wow…  I’m completely at a loss on this one.

I realize that as a private company Fox has the right to choose what they do and don’t air on their network within FCC guidelines, but if a little of that “concern” about offending viewers were redirected to examining some of the programming and advertisements they do broadcast, I have a feeling the lineup would be far different than it is now.

Heavenly Father, thank You for letting me rant on about this today.  As always, You’re a wonderful listener.  Please fill our hearts and minds with Your Presence and Understanding, so that everyone can experience that Hope :

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

Amen.

~Phather Phil