Fox News: Truth in Advertising

I've blogged before about the strange state of advertising here in DC. On the #1 radio station in the area, it's not uncommon to hear ads for major weapons systems. It's a government town, and major corporations buy up lots of ads to hawk their wares to government procurement specialists. There are also political ads, run by interest groups or oppressive regimes, which are intended to fall on the eyes of lawmakers.

Today's Washington Post had an interesting one. It was a full page color ad from Fox News lambasting all of the other networks for "missing" the 9.12 demonstrations. A major news event! And those pinheads in the Main Stream Media missed it! Included in the ad were pictures. One large one showed folks gathered in front of the Capitol. Another was an aerial shot, which showed a moderate crowd extending five or six blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue. I have three reactions to this:

1) Fox News seems to be misrepresenting...intentionally...the coverage of this event. CNN, NBC, ABC, and MSNBC didn't "miss" the event. Missing an event means not covering it. The other networks did cover it. They didn't give it quite the prominence that Fox News did, but there was a rather significant reason for that, and that is...

2) Fox News was responsible for the event. It was the brainchild of one of their more successful infotainment personalities. Other conservative organizations signed on, sure. But this isn't something that occurred, and that was then "covered" by Fox News. It was whole-cloth created by Fox News. This isn't invective. Just reality. Heck, Fox is still pitching the event.

3) Fox News seems to be misrepresenting...intentionally...the size of the event. The two images in the ad are juxtaposed in a way that implies a huge crowd. The largest image is shot from the mall, and shows a densely packed group on the National Mall. It's not a particularly long shot, though. We're not seeing a large expanse of the Mall...just a block or so. There's then that second shot, which shows the demonstration as it moves down Pennsylvania Ave. towards the Capitol. But that street is comparatively narrow...and filling it for six or seven blocks is something that could be done with a moderate crowd..between 65,000 and 70,000. What the images are *intended* to convey is a significantly larger crowd. They are presented to imply that the Mall crowd extended as far as the one on Pennsylvania Avenue, which it did not. There've been immense conservative demonstrations in DC...one pro-life event back in the 90s had at least 450,000. This was not one of them.

Honesty is, as I'm recalling, the first of the "Twelve" principles being pitched by Fox. Evidently "irony" is number two.

Howdy, Stranger!

As you're reading this post, you have most likely just arrived from Facebook after clicking on the FB ad my church has been running.

So, hi! I'm David, and I'll be your blogger for today! I'm also the pastor of a little church in Bethesda, Maryland. We're Trinity Presbyterian Church, and we're an interesting blend of folks trying to muddle our way through what it means to follow Jesus.

What that means for me as a pastor really isn't very different from what it means for the rest of the folks who together form my church. It means that we find the stories that Jesus told and the reality of his life personally transforming. It means that we're convinced that there was something powerful and important and relevant about this person, even if he did live in a backwater province of a now-long-dead empire. The core Christian ethic of non-judgmental love towards others is a powerful, powerful thing...and we're convinced that finding ways to live a life governed by that love would make the world a better place.

Being a minister and all, I tend to think about faith, and write more about faith. Being human, I think about other stuff as well. Like, say, philosophy. Cosmology. Family. Politics. Beer. The important things. Those mostly-coherent musings are disgorged right here on this blog.

If you've had some bad experiences with Christianity, or if even the idea of faith seems alien to you, don't expect anything other than a sympathetic ear. Christianity has wandered far from the teachings of Jesus, into a place where the faith is either a front for a particular brand of politics or a form of magic that'll get us all the consumer products we so dearly desire. If you've struggled with this, I have too. Some thoughts on those subjects can be found here. Starting with the "Jesus" button over to your right is probably not a bad place, but if you're the sort of person who doesn't like to be fenced in, just search the blog. Can't find what you're interested in or what you're personally struggling with? Well, you can ask, if you'd like. Just drop me a comment.

Once you've gotten to know me a bit, feel free to drop by on a Sunday. You can learn more about us at the website. You know, directions and times and stuff. Or, if Sunday seems a bit formal and intimidatingly churchy, we've got other opportunities throughout the week. Can't bring yourself to do that? Well..stick around here for a while. Snag the feed for this blog, and join in on the conversation.

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[update 2023]  This ancient post was an invite to a congregation that no longer exists.  We'd pitched it out in an effort to attract folks via Facebook advertising, and discovered that the clicks from that site somehow never registered here.  So we stopped. 

Sometimes people read this still, or so my stats tell me, so, well, it's worth updating.

Did I believe all of these things?  Yes.  Did my congregation?  No.  

So I left.  And then that church withered away to nothing, because they had no vision of who they were or what they wanted to be.  So it goes.

I'm still just as Jesus focused, although I don't have a "Jesus button" on the blog.  Search for a while.   Or read the books I wrote, once I finally found a Christian community that shared/tolerated my thoughts.