***Media Research Center CyberAlert***
11:55am EDT, Tuesday August 21, 2007 (Vol. Twelve; No. 144)
The 2,471st CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
CNN's Tuesday-Thursday mini-series, "God's Warriors," hosted by
Christiane Amanpour, looks like it will play the old liberal
game of moral equivalence. Amanpour reportedly compares Christian
chastity advocates to the Taliban. Even the promos for the
mini-series which have been running on CNN for the past few
weeks demonstrate the probable "game plan" that Amanpour and
CNN have in mind, grouping together pro-life Christian
college students protesting in front of the Supreme Court,
Jewish settlers on the West Bank, and Islamic radicals. To
paraphrase an old children's jingle, "two of these things are
not like the other."
An "unprecedented six-hour television event," the
mini-series will examine "God's Jewish Warriors" on Tuesday
night, "God's Muslim Warriors" on Wednesday night, and "God's
Christian Warriors" on Thursday night -- all from 9 to 11pm EDT.
A preview of "God's Christian Warriors," which ran on Friday's
The Situation Room, featured an interview of Jerry Falwell,
which was conducted a week before the evangelical pastor's
death. As one might expect, Amanpour asked Falwell about
his much-publicized connection of the 9/11 attacks with
secularism in America, in particular, the legalization of
abortion.
The preview also juxtaposed clips from the Falwell
interview with file footage of the bombing at a Birmingham,
Alabama abortion clinic in 1998, and other attacks on
abortionists from the 1990s that, in Amanpour's words, were
conducted by "radical opponents [who] had long waged their
holy war against abortion clinics," which also "terrified
many women."
Amanpour also claimed that this violence "not only
frightened a number of abortion clinics into closing, it
also caused a public backlash," presumably against the wider
pro-life movement, which is a debatable claim, given the
continued viability of the pro-life movement. It is not
clear from this preview whether Amanpour mentions in her
documentary the fact that all mainstream pro-life leaders
and organizations have repeatedly condemned violence against
abortion providers.
[This item is adapted from a Monday posting, by Matthew
Balan, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2007/08/20/
cnn-s-upcoming-
miniseries-equates-christian-activists-taliban ]
The AP's David Bauder wrote positively of Amanpour and
the upcoming mini-series in an article on Monday. Bauder
mentioned Amanpour's treatment of a "fundamentalist Christian
group" called BattleCry in the mini-series. The following
excerpt is another clue which supports the theory that
Amanpour and CNN have their "moral equivalence" hat on:
"The segment on Christians explores BattleCry in some depth,
digging at the roots of an organization that fights against
some of the cruder elements of popular culture and urges
teenagers to be chaste. In noting how girls at some
BattleCry events are encouraged to wear long dresses, Amanpour
asks the group's leader how it is different from the Taliban."
See:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_en_tv/ap_on_tv_
christiane_amanpour_6
Encouraging modest dress is the same as forcing girls
out of school, beating women who don't wear burkhas, and
publicly-executing offenders?
CNN's page on the "God's Warriors" shows, with video
excerpts:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/gods.warriors/
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