New Bogeymen and the Media Meta Narrative.
I've been thinking a lot recently about how the media report on religious crazies and how they 'tag' them. The media is rightly criticised for quoting people like of Anjem Choudary as if he is representative of the wider Muslim community. But the same logic also applies to the likes of Terry Jones, the Qu'ran burning pastor, or failed prophet Harold Camping. Quite why the media give these eccentric characters such prominence when they would never dream of giving similar coverage to mainsteam Evangelicals is mystifying. And who gives these men the 'tag' of being Evangelical in the first place? If they describe themselves as such, so be it, I'll have to live with that; but if that 'tag' has been attributed to them by the media one may question their motives for doing so.

The suspicion in my mind is that the media is creating a sense of fear and loathing among its audience and using that fear to promote a narrative of its own. That narrative views all religious belief as a socio-pathology and to that end promotes a new set of bogeymen to scare the public into condemning the innocent along with the guilty. This bleak prospect is eased by the thought that by so doing the media demonstrate - to those with eyes to see - that its alleged Liberal values, of justice, fairness and impartiality, are so much pious cant.