The reaction was immediate and frenzied. The overwhelmingly left-liberal (i.e. pro-abortion) media, not just in America but throughout the English-speaking world, erupted with fury at the prospect that a long-entrenched feminist article of faith - namely, that a woman's right to abort a baby takes precedence over the unborn child's right to survive - might be overturned. As Kerry Wakefield (a woman, in case you're wondering) pungently put it in The Spectator Australia: "The feminist offence machine ratcheted up to full, wild-eyed stridency, with Democrat congresswoman Elizabeth Warren doing everything short of howling at the moon."

The revisiting of Roe v Wade is a rare setback for a political class that has become accustomed to calling the shots. The tone of their outrage was perfectly captured by the whiny headline on a video published on the Guardian's website: "It feels like such a betrayal". Another Guardian headline pronounced that the Alito draft, if adopted, would be a "global catastrophe for women". Such restraint ...

Well, better suck it up, folks. The anti-abortion lobby knows all too well what it's like to be on the losing side. Now the boot appears to be on the other foot and the champions of abortion rights are not taking it at all well.

But here's the thing. In the weeks since the leak, I've listened to hours of discussion, analysis and speculation on the BBC and America's left-leaning National Public Radio. Not once did I hear a pro-life voice. (Correction: the BBC's Stephen Sackur included a question about the Alito draft at the very tail end of an interview with Victoria Sparz, a pro-life Congresswoman, but left no time for her to expand on her answer.)

Not surprisingly, Roe v Wade has aroused less interest in the New Zealand media. Why should it, when the New Zealand abortion rights lobby has achieved its aim of making abortion as simple, at least in legal terms, as a tooth extraction (and treats it as if it's no more morally complicated)?

But there has been a certain amount of venting in solidarity with the American sisterhood. On TV Three's dependably woke The Project, I saw an over-excited Kate Rodger shrieking with incoherent rage while her fellow panellists nodded and murmured in agreement. No surprises there.

Media coverage of the Alito draft, in other words, has been overwhelmingly and egregiously one-sided - a perfect illustration of where the media sit in the culture wars. Even people who believe in a woman's right to have an abortion would struggle to argue that the controversy has been reported in a fair and balanced way.

As with climate change, a stifling and oppressive media groupthink prevails. And what's particularly striking about the tone of media commentary is the obvious assumption that everyone shares the media elite's anger, as if no half-intelligent or reasonable person could possibly be opposed to unrestricted abortion rights.

These are the new bigots - people who are not only intolerant of dissenting views but so convinced of their own rightness that they don't even acknowledge the existence of counter-arguments.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. One thing that did surprise me, however, was to learn that the supposedly neutral and "fiercely independent" Wellington-based online news site Scoop declined to publish two news releases on Roe v Wade from the anti-abortion group Right to Life - this after running a pro-choice column by Scoop's leftist in-house commentator Gordon Campbell and two statements from abortion rights groups attacking the Alito draft.

I've admired Scoop in the past, naively believing it was willing to publish all shades of news and opinion, but its credibility now is shot - a shame, because if it had the guts and integrity to live up to its own hype, it could serve as a valuable platform for groups unable to gain traction in the mainstream media.

As for Alito's draft decision, some pertinent facts appear to have been overlooked amid the backlash. The first and most important is that if the Supreme Court goes ahead and overturns Roe v Wade, abortion rights will become a matter for each state to decide. In other words, decisions on abortion law will be handed back to the elected representatives of the people - which, in a properly functioning democracy, is surely where they belonged in the first place. The 1973 decision overrode states' rights to determine their own laws and now they may get them back. But far from applauding this judicial nod to people power, the pro-abortion camp is aghast. Leftist ideologues tend to be distrustful of democracy because they can never be sure that people will vote the correct way.

To put it another way, a reversal of Roe v Wade would be only a partial unspooling of the law. It's not as if the court is likely to rule that abortion will become illegal everywhere and in any circumstances (although some abortion rights activists, desperate to stir up opposition even if it means telling porkies, are suggesting that's exactly what will happen).

On that note, it's amusing - in an ironic way - to hear activists wailing that a bunch of mostly male judges in Washington DC have made what they condemn as an "ideological" decision. Isn't that pretty much what happened in 1973 when the court (which was then entirely male) ruled in favour of women's right to terminate a pregnancy? The only thing different is that the dominant ideology on the court bench has been reversed. The current is now running in the other direction and the feminists, having had things their way for 50 years, don't like it.

As my friend and former colleague Bob Edlin observed, "the ruling effectively demonstrates that one bunch of judges can determine something one day, based on what they argue the US constitution allows or disallows. Another bunch of judges with different ideological leanings can rule to the contrary several years [or in this case decades] later."

As Bob points out, the US constitution hasn't changed; only the composition of the court has. This highlights a fundamental flaw in a system that places enormous power in the hands of judges appointed on the basis of their political and ideological leanings in the expectation that they will interpret the constitution accordingly.

The court is expected to release its final decision next month or in July. In the meantime we can expect to be bombarded with canards such as "abortion is a health issue". (Not for the unborn baby it's not. And in any case, since when were pregnancy and childbirth classified as illnesses?)

Placards waved by Roe v Wade demonstrators also assert that "abortion is a human right". Since when? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1948, which was the distillation of centuries of thinking and writing about the subject, makes no mention of abortion. It does, however, unequivocally assert the right to life. The fiction that abortion is a human right is an invention of late 20th century feminism, but the slogan has an undeniably catchy appeal to people incapable of thinking above bumper-sticker level.

• Karl du Fresne has been in journalism for more than 50 years. He is now a freelance journalist and blogger living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand.
• First published by Karl du Fresne. Republished with permission.

She said political reporting had evolved into a level of commentary that was destructive, and while MPs were reflecting on their own culture, she hoped the media would too.

"What is it going to take? Is it going to take somebody to die? That's what I am afraid of." Curran said. Read more

It gained positive attention this month through a video ad about Internet pornography, using their motif of every parent's worst Internet nightmare knocking on their front door.

"What is interesting about the New Zealand ad is that its offbeat, waggish attitude makes the problem of pornography approachable and less distressing.," write Sean Fitzpatrick in a post on Catholic Exchange.

"Without detracting from the seriousness of the issue, the ad dodges being condemnatory, preachy, or alarmist.

It is a true piece of satire, rendering the problem of pornography in a humorous light and therefore in a palatable light while levelling a practical and persuasive challenge to parents."

A new study published last month by The Broadcasting Standard Authority and NZ On Air found that while the rates of young people accessing harmful content were high, supervision from parents and caregivers had improved dramatically.

The Children's Media Use Study found:

• 87 per cent of children aged 10-14 had viewed television content that they found upsetting in the previous 12 months
• 72 per cent had seen it on the Internet and 54 per cent had heard it on the radio
• 20 per cent of parents reported this exposure resulted in nightmares or disrupted sleep
• 19 per cent said their children copied aggressive behaviour
• 15 per cent said they engaged in behaviour inappropriate for their age
• 30 per cent of parents reported their children had learned inappropriate words from the content
• 48 per cent of children said they knew how to change channels or click out of a website if they were disturbed by what they saw

BSA chief executive Belinda Moffat said they had seen "quite a big increase" in ways parents would limit and supervise the viewing their children had.

Source

• catholicexchange.com
• BSA NZA Study
• stuff.co.nz
• tvnz.co.nz
• Image: Screenshot bsa.govt.nz

Much of the data came from Stormfront.org, which Times contributor Seth Stephens-Davidowitz called "America's most popular online hate site."

It was founded in 1995 by former Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black.

The frightening thing is that 76 percent of Americans on the site are under 30.

According to the Times story, Stormfront's targets break down like this: 39 percent Jews, 33 percent blacks, 13 percent Hispanics, 11 percent Muslims and 3 percent other.

This led me to surmise that many of the haters are white Christians.

I founded OnFaith eight years ago this summer.

I was new to the religion world when I started and had no idea what to expect.

The fact is that I was too green to anticipate the potential complications that might arise from a pluralistic religion site.

I had long heard the old adage that one never discussed religion or politics at dinner, but I was not intimidated.

One of my friends asked me if I was afraid of running a religion website because it might be too controversial.

I replied that I had covered Washington social life for many years, and nothing was more dangerous than that.

But I hadn't counted on one thing: the Christians.

Yes, the Christians.

Anyone in the public eye — whether writing for newspapers, being in politics, or on television — gets hate mail.

There are a lot of kooks out there.

Back when people wrote letters, you could spot a kook from the handwriting: thin pen, slanted, and squiggly.

On the outside of the envelope were often little notes like "I have electrodes in my teeth."

Inside, everything was underlined in red with lots of exclamation points.

I used to wonder if there was a special school for crazy people to learn how to write these letters.

When I started OnFaith, the mail became comments on the Internet — and they were worse than the letters. Continue reading

Source

• Sally Quinn in OnFaith

Sally Quinn is the founding editor of OnFaith.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Perth working on my six-weekly (or so) column for NZ Catholic, the newspaper I worked at for five years until 2010. It was not long after my friend James Bergin had given a stellar performance on national television talking about the election of Pope Francis, and I'd also been observing the work of a group of young Catholics in Australia also being asked to comment on the conclave, the papal election, the choice of Pope Francis and so on.

And so I wrote this column:

Did anyone else catch James Bergin on Q&A a few weeks back, talking about the election of Pope Francis?

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, James Bergin is a good friend of mine and someone I work with on a regular basis on Church projects, so I am biased. But I thought he did an outstanding job when being interrogated by a woman who would now be considered one of New Zealand's leading interviewers.

Internationally, this phenomenon of young Catholic professionals speaking about the Church in the media is taking off. My first observation of this effort was during World Youth Day in Sydney, when a small group of young Catholics were part of the Sky News coverage of the event. Rather than having professional reporters trying to explain something they knew nothing about, young Catholics were part of the massive crowds, shared their experiences and, when necessary, explained what was happening during Mass or the Stations of the Cross. Continue reading

Sources

• Gavin Abraham in The Catholic Soapbox
• See also Pat McCarthy in CathNews NZ Pacific
• Image: Planet Blog

Gavin Abraham, a journalist for more than a dozen years, has spent most of the last six years working in Catholic media.

EFKS media opened with 80 percent coverage of the country.

"We hope to have complete coverage in three months," says Chairman of the General Assembly, Rev. Elder Tautiaga Senara.

Both the radio and TV outlets will be under the operational leadership of Tuiasau Uelese Petaia, a former CEO of TV One, who also ran his own television station and has wide experience in the print media.

When Tuiasau was named manager of the stations, the appropriateness of the appointment was questioned because Tuiasau has been convicted of 67 counts of theft and given an 18 month jail sentence which he completed last year.

Asked about the concerns raised by the appointment, General Secretary of CCCS, Rev. Dr. Iutisone Salevao responded with a question of his own.

"Who was crucified together with Jesus, was it an angel?" he asked.

"However, he has the experience needed to realise the church's dream of operating a radio and television service for her members and the community," he said.

Initially the focus will be on youth; all programmes are to be broadcast in English and Samoan.

Salevao has previously revealed the need to address the problems faced by youth and hopes the programmes will help them choose a better road in life.

Both media are co-funded by the Council for World Mission in Singapore and London, but the church hopes for financial self-sufficiency in the future.

Source

• Talamua
• Talamua
• Talamua
• Image: Bebo

From what comes across my desk in theological literature there is still a lot of life in the Virtual Council, though it is true that it holds no enchantment for young seminarians or members of new ecclesial movements. Thus, the Church of the future, as a matter of demography, will be more closely oriented to the documents of the Real Council.

The end of the "Virtual Council"

When Blessed John Paul II lay dying he said to the youth who had travelled to Rome to offer their prayerful support: "I have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you." Less irenically he might have said, "I have tried to get through to you, notwithstanding layers and layers of deaf and dumb bureaucrats, and now that I am dying, the fact that you are here means that at least some of you understood, and this is my consolation." Similarly, Benedict seemed to be saying to the clergy of Rome, notwithstanding all the banality, all the pathetic liturgies, all the congregationalist ecclesiology, the Virtual Council of the Media has lost its dynamism. It is no longer potent. It no longer sets the course of human lives; it no longer inspires rebellion. It too has become boring and sterile. Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: Catholic in Brooklyn

Still current is the fallout of actions of 2DAY FM employees who appeared to have prompted the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who was vulnerable to suicide. Also recent is the criticism that, while the media were empowering church sexual abuse victims by telling their stories, the victims and their stories were providing fodder for one of the year's biggest media events, so that media outlets were in effect capitalising on lives broken by the church. Earlier the BBC was exposed for suppressing coverage of the exploitative behaviour of one of its own, Jimmy Savile.

Back in January, we were reflecting on the film The Iron Lady, and Meryl Streep's determination not to make a plaything of Margaret Thatcher. Instead she would continue her own lifelong effort as an actor to 'defend the humanity of people that we've made into emblematic figures of one sort or another'. Continue reading

Sources

• Michael Mullins in Eureka Street
• Image: The Guardian

Michael Mullins is editor of Eureka Street

Some agenda groups who oppose one or more Catholic teachings, for example, use the name "Catholic," even when there seems little evidence of Catholics in their ranks and no evidence that they represent Catholic teaching. Read more

Sources

• Sister Mary Ann Walsh on US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Blog
• Image: Watching Media

Sister Mary Ann Walsh is a Sister of Mercy and is Director of Media Relations, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

This is the hottest summer in recorded Colorado history. There are forest fires in the mountains. There is gunfire in the city.

On the morning we awoke to the murders in Aurora, I was packing to leave for Disneyland. To our surprise, for end-of-life care is expensive, my mother left a small sum to be divided among her children. I wanted to spend my inheritance as I thought she might have spent it, for something fun. My daughter and I made plans to take the four oldest grandchildren to Disneyland and then to visit family in nearby Los Angeles. Our younger son and his wife, teachers on summer vacation, agreed to join us.

At the last minute, my daughter decided to bring Leo, her 2-year-old son, along on the trip. Read more

Sources

• Melissa Musick Nussbaum in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Denver Post

Melissa Musick Nussbaum is an NCR columnist.

TVNZ's Breakfast host Petra Bagust has once again shown her support for Media Prayer Day by being one of the faces fronting the campaign in the lead up to August 5.

Media Prayer Day is an initiative of Christian Broadcasting Association (CBA) which Bagust has been involved with for a number of years.

"CBA is very good at coming up with new ways of keeping people involved, and prayer is so simple, yet so powerful," she says.

Around 1700 churches have been invited to join in Media Prayer Day, which has been set up with the aim of encouraging churches to intercede for the spread of the Gospel through New Zealand's mass media.

Continue reading

The general secretary of the Church, Rev. Dr Iutisone Salevao, said the idea has been in the pipeline for about five years but after its General Meeting in May, the church finally decided to go through with it.

Talks have been held already with those whom the church think should carry out the transmission work. The only cable TV company in Samoa, Pro-Com, have been contacted to assist in ensuring that full national coverage is established by May next year.

A committee handling programmes and other aspects of television work has also met and will continue to meet and establish staff, equipment and sales and marketing strategies within the next ten months.

Source

• Island Business
• Image Arthur Henrique