Dawkins defends his doc

January 27th, 2006 by Monitor

The New Stateman has Richard Dawkins’ diary this week. In it, he confirms again that the letters about the show sent to Channel 4 have been running at two to one in favour. The “antis” complained mainly that he only interviewed “extremists” and that he failed to show “both sides” of the argument. He deals with the both complaints in a single paragraph:

The balance is (over-) provided by Thought for the Day, Prayer for the Day, Songs of Praise, the Daily Service, Faith to Faith, Choral Evensong, Sunday Half-Hour, The Story of God, Belief, Beyond Belief, and others. Mine was a brief opportunity to put the other side. As for my “extremist” interviews, would that Pastor Ted Haggard were extreme. In neo-con America, he is mainstream. President of the 30 million-strong National Association of Evangelicals, he has a weekly phone conversation with Bush.

There is also an anecdote about a university candidate who had been taught at one of the Accelerated Christian Education schools featured in the second program.

She turned out to be the worst candidate they had ever encountered. She had no idea that thinking was even an option: her job was either to know or guess the “right” answer. Worse, she had no clue how bad she was, having always scored at least 95 per cent in exams – the National Christian Schools Certificate (NCSC).

Troubling.


2 Responses to “Dawkins defends his doc”

  1. Stuart says:
    28/Jan/2006 at 2:34 pm

    Dawkins is only hitting a problem which investigative journalists have faced for years. How are you supposed to expose the crimes of the rich and powerful when people who depend upon their privilege and influence over the mainstream media to perpetuate those crimes demand equal time to your exposure? The joke is that if they didn’t have that influence their objections to Dawkins wouldn’t get flagged up so prominently in the first place, while rational objections to emotional fascism never get heard. Anybody here tried getting a letter in the national press recently objecting to their view of gays, asylum seekers or single mums, or their lazy assumption that the only person who can answer an ‘ethical’ problem is a clergyman whose income depends upon avoiding the issue?

  2. Accelerated Christian Education Under Spotlight « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion says:
    24/Dec/2008 at 1:11 am

    […] Statesman hat tip to MediaWatchWatch) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Exclusive Brethren Schools in the NewsSchool […]