CNN and atheism - it's boycott time.

Update: It appears that CNN will be re-airing the story at 8 pm Eastern tonight (Thursday, 8 Feb). The original panel will be replaced by an interview with Richard Dawkins.

A recent CNN story on atheism has sparked a great deal of outrage from the online atheist community. The story, which was broadcast on the January 31st edition of Paula Zahn Now (transcript) (video) detailed the plight of two families of atheists who say they were ostracized from their communities as the result of their beliefs - in one case, just for having identified themselves as atheists, and in another for objecting to the prayer and bible study that were taking place at their child's public school. The show then moved from the story to a panel discussion. The topic, displayed prominently behind the panel, was, "Why do atheists inspire such hatred?" The panel consisted of three people - a sports commentator, a journalism professor, and a right-wing political commentator. None of these three was an atheist, and two of the three quickly decided that the hatred toward atheists is the result of outspoken atheism, and that atheists need to, in the words of the journalism professor, "shut up and let people do what they do." (The sports comentator was the lone voice of reason on the panel, and even there reason consisted of arguing that there are lots of people who should shut up and don't, so why penalize atheists for that.)

I was disgusted by the tone of the discussion, but I am more upset at the substantial lack of anything even remotely similar to balance in the treatment of the topic. There is absolutely no excuse for a "news" broadcast to conduct a discussion like that without including an atheist. Had they attempted something similar involving any other minority group, there would already have been a massive outcry.

I'm reading Richard Dawkins' new book on atheism right now, and there is quite a lot in there that I disagree with, but there is one thing that he definitely gets right. If those of us who are agnostics, or atheists, or freethinkers or other nonbelievers want to change the way we are treated as a group, we need to act like a group. We need to be more vocal, not less vocal, in demanding our basic rights.

CNN did something that was very wrong here, and we need to get them to right the wrong. A tactic that has worked for other groups faced with similar situations is a boycott, and I think one is called for here. Let's tell CNN that they need to take definte steps to address the unfair and unbalanced way they treated atheists on that program, and that if they do not, we will boycott their advertisers. At a minimum, these steps should include: (1) a public apology for their failure to include atheists in a discussion about the treatment that atheists sometimes receive; and (2) a broadcast that re-examines this issue and that does include atheists in the discussion.

If you think this is a good idea, and are willing to participate in something like this, leave your name and the city that you live in in the comments section of this post, or click on the "contact" tab up top and send me an email. If there is a good response over the next couple of days, I'll contact CNN with the relevant information.

More like this

PZ Myers reports (and the report is confirmed on both CNN's and Richard Dawkins' websites) that tonights episode (Thursday, 8 Feb, 8pm Eastern) of Paula Zahn Now will revisit the story of the atheists, and replace the uninformed panel discussion with an interview of Richard Dawkins. As much as I'd…
Austin Cline is one of the more incisive regular writers on atheism. This week he discusses a Paula Zahn show on CNN that begins with a brief vignette about couple in a small town in Mississippi who complained to their son's public elementary school principal about time spent in bible study and…
That wretched excuse to bash atheists on the Paula Zahn program that I criticized must have generated some intense and voluminous correspondence, because right now they're scrambling to do damage control. I just got word from Richard Dawkins that they are going to repeat the lead segment (the part…
OK, here's the latest word on tonight's show on atheists with Paula Zahn: there will be a different version of the previous report on ostracized atheists. Dawkins' interview will be four minutes long. There will also be a panel with Niger Innis (a conservative Republican), Roland Martin (a…

Mike, I've got a better idea. Let's do it as a podcast. Get a handful of atheists together (I am a very vocal atheist) and we'll record it and put it up on The Podcast Network. Flick me an email if you like the idea.

cheers
Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network www.thepodcastnetwork.com &
Host of Australia's #1 podcast G'Day World - www.gdayworld.com

By Cameron Reilly (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

Count me in.

John Hamilton
Stockton Ca

By John Hamilton (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

I'm in.

Sanjiv Sarwate
Chicago, IL

By Sanjiv Sarwate (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

I'm in.

Milan Prochazka
Little Rock, AR

I´m in

São Paulo,Brazil

I'm in.

Donna Druchunas
Longmont, CO

Ugh. At this point, the only cable news I will watch is Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and I haven't even been watching that lately.

By Tukla in Iowa (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

Good evening, and welcome aboard the cluetrain. We left that station in 1999. We will be pulling into Podcast momentarily. Hope you enjoy your new digs.

By Matt Platte (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

I'm in.

Jake Bryan
Halfmoon, NY

great idea.

Lars Barquist
New Brunswick, NJ

Sure, I'm in.

I have to say something about the 'balance' issue. Just having an atheist on the panel wouldn't have been enough. In fact, having seen how CNN operates, I'm glad they didn't. I'm pretty sure the producers would not have gotten a reasonable person to represent atheism. They would have gotten the most rabidly insane nut they could find. (I wouldn't even put it past them to use an actor)

It's like when a news channel (I can't recall which one) was bashing Dungeons and Dragons (oh, so long ago). The panel consisted of a few 'normal' kids and one stereotypical dork (the kind who'd make Screech look cool).

Me, too.

Eric Burkhardt
Spring Hill, KS

Not a big loss for them, (I use CBC not CNN for news), but we do get CNN on cable up here:

Rick Pikul
Toronto, ON Canada

By Rick Pikul (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

I can honestly say it will be a long time before I watch CNN again, and likewise it is on cable here.

John Spraggs
Roberts Creek, BC
Canada

By John Spraggs (not verified) on 07 Feb 2007 #permalink

I say no. Boycotts, aside from being purely symbolic acts which have no impact on giant institutions like CNN, look childish & petulant. We should make mature complaints to CNN directly. In fact, I see on Dawkins' website that he is to be a featured guest tonight. Maybe they already got the message.

By eric collier (not verified) on 08 Feb 2007 #permalink

I'm so totally in.

Of course, i haven't watched them in years, except by accident one day when my roommate left it on, and my hands were full and i couldn't change the channel right away. They were broadcasting a recent execution. When they showed the body bag being hauled out of the building i dropped what i was doing and turned it off, and my stance of ignoring CNN turned into active boycott.

But that was only a few months ago, so i can add this to the list of reasons why.