Made it back finally. The flight was uneventful and the conference as a whole was very very good.

 

The final plenary speaker this morning was Dr. David Haskell, associate professor and program coordinator of journalism at Wilfred Laurier University. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Dr. Haskell at dinner last night when he randomly decided to sit down at our table. He recently published a book called Through A Lens Darkly: How the News Media Perceive and Portray Evangelicals. This morning’s presentation was based largely upon his research and findings. Dr. Haskell’s study is the very first empirical research of media portrayal of evangelicals in the country and it proved a point that many have suspected for quite some time – there is significant , measurable bias amongst the media in Canada against evangelicals.

 

The title of this morning’s presentation was How "they" see you: Putting your best faith  forward, and it focused on how evangelicals can work to change the media perception. The suggestions were broken down into two categories…easy (small pill) and difficult (reconstructive surgery). Ultimately one of the conclusions is that the media’s perception (however biased) is a reflection of the culture’s and the culture’s (however skewed) is based upon its observation of evangelicals placing much of the blame for the bias squarely into our laps. Hypocrisy and lifestyles that are not distinct from the world around us are significant contributors to the culture’s perspective which feeds the media which in turn feeds culture and the vicious cycle is at work.

 

There was lots in the presentation and I am already a significant way into the book and I will write a review when I am done so I am not going to flesh out the content right now but I will leave you with Dr. Haskell’s final thought from the presentation and leave the rest to your imagination: