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Coverage of the Reason Rally in the Media ... or Lack Thereof

I have commented on this issue in various places on Atheist Nexus, but the utter dearth of notice by print and television media is worthy of further comment and action. As many A/N members have observed, none of the major television news organizations gave any notable coverage to the Reason Rally, at least not as evinced by any news broadcast or webpage that I have seen to date. Whether they were more involved with Trayvon Martin or the GOP primary contests or what, I don't know. Maybe they feel that 20,000 at a rally isn't significant ... or they want to ignore us because we make their believing audience nervous. I can think of all sorts of excuses, but no salient REASONS.

That said, I am repeating here the message which, with slight variations, I sent to NBC, ABC and CBS yesterday:

Sunday, 25 March saw over 20,000 people gather on the Mall in Washington, DC to celebrate reason, more specifically, the Reason Rally. This was a major event for the atheist community with multiple personalities lending their support, including Dr. Richard Dawkins and Adam Savage of the "Mythbusters" television series. To my knowledge, not CBS, NBC, or ABC devoted any coverage to this event. Considering the assault which the Separation of Church and State is currently under, I believe the Reason Rally was deserving of mention, particularly since CBS aired a commercial from the Freedom From Religion Foundation during your CBS Sunday Morning program and then again today (26 March) on the CBS Evening News.

We are atheists and we are productive citizens of this nation ... and we deserve notice.

Once again, I encourage all A/N members to let these and other media outlets know of our displeasure at their lack of coverage.

CBS News feedback site

ABC News feedback site

Feedback to NBC News may be sent to mediainquiries@msnbc.com.

Tags: Reason Rally, coverage, news

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Julie Carter on March 29, 2012 at 4:21am

I agree, Loren (though I see the post that RT America had something), we really should try to get the mainstream media to cover things like this, so that more people see it and understand that we're out here and we're normal people.

Of course, I saw the comments where people from my area (Dallas-Fort Worth) went after atheists hard because there are billboards about to go up about atheism. A mainstream station covered it (Fox 4 DFW), but they were obviously biased against it, and claimed they were "targeted at children." The newscaster was a total dick, and most of the people commenting are idiots. But at least with the billboards, and the coverage, maybe more atheists and freethinkers will find out that there's a way to meet others like them and to get involved in the groups. (The billboards are being put up by the Dallas Coalition of Reason, which is made up of several atheist, freethinker, skeptic groups.)

Permalink Reply by Nerdlass on March 28, 2012 at 7:08pm

CNN had an article on their belief blogs, and though it did mention the Rally, it was more of an interview about American Atheists... and I don't recall seeing it linked directly to the homepage, though it could have been at the time.

What about Huffington Post? And I haven't had a chance to check TYT. It'd actually be a little odd for them not to mention it, considering Cenk is agnostic and has had no qualms in saying so.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on March 28, 2012 at 9:30pm

I found the CNN article you referred to, though it was not up there on the surface at all. HuffPost or TYT may have done SOMETHING, I think, but again, they're not MAJOR media (which I define as the "Big Three," plus CNN. If I don't include Faux Noise, I think the reason is self-evident.

Now, maybe I'm being picky ... but fact is, there still are people who get their news, what little they DO get, from the tube, plain and simple. If I'm focusing on this as my major point of attention, that is why.

Permalink Reply by Julie Carter on March 29, 2012 at 4:24am

I agree, but these days, a lot of people get their news right off the web, from places that they have set as their homepage (like Yahoo) or news sites they visit, which are usually things like CNN or major newspapers (Washington Post, NYTimes). But I'd really like to see it on the local network news channels, because a lot of people still make sure to watch that every weekday without fail.

Permalink Reply by Chris Dodds on April 2, 2012 at 9:21pm

You should see if you can get the American Atheists on board. See if you can post it on their facebook page or something.

Permalink Reply by Richard ∑wald on April 9, 2012 at 10:19am

Or you can go to their site, lots of links to network and mainstream media coverage there, just sayin'

Permalink Reply by Sandi on April 24, 2012 at 11:55am

I kind of wish the westboro bapties had gone nuts - this always guarantees big media coverage...

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on April 24, 2012 at 3:21pm

I would have been surprised off my tailbone if they had. Their strategy is to stay within the law insofar as it's possible and goad someone else into making the first move ... so they can sue. This is what the policy of religious tolerance gets us ... Yuk-TOOEY!