{"id":8646,"date":"2006-10-03T14:55:58","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T18:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8646.html"},"modified":"2006-10-03T14:55:58","modified_gmt":"2006-10-03T18:55:58","slug":"cbs-segment-blames-secularism-for-catastrophes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/cbs-segment-blames-secularism-for-catastrophes\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS segment blames secularism for catastrophes"},"content":{"rendered":"

When CBS News added Katie Couric as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, the network also revamped the entire program, adding a “Free Speech” segment at the end of every broadcast. I’ve never been entirely clear on the point of the shtick, other than to give random people a minute-long monologue after the news.<\/p>\n

For the first two weeks, viewers were treated to the kind of ideological balance<\/a> we’ve come to expect from the major networks: Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani, and former Bush aide Michael Gerson were featured, but not a single liberal or Democratic voice was included in the mix.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, however, was over the top<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In introducing the “Free Speech” segment<\/a> of the October 2 broadcast of the CBS Evening News<\/i>, anchor Katie Couric noted that because of the school shooting<\/a> that day in Paradise, Pennsylvania, “we’ve decided to hold the ‘Free Speech’ we had planned to bring you. Instead, we’ve called on someone who knows all too well the pain the families in Lancaster County are feeling tonight.” But, as the weblog Think Progress noted<\/a>, the segment featured Brian Rohrbough, father of one of the students killed in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre<\/a> in Colorado, who — rather than talking about “the pain of the families,” as Couric indicated — proceeded to blame school shootings on evolutionary theory being taught in public schools and on abortion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Rohrbough has my deepest sympathies, and I can’t even imagine the tragedy that his family suffered. If he wants to blame modern science and the First Amendment for what he perceives as society’s ills, that’s his business.<\/p>\n

And I wouldn’t even mind if CBS aired Falwell-like rhetoric on occasion, just so long as the network was even-handed about it. But it’s not. As Kevin Drum noted<\/a>, Bill Maher was (irony alert) recently censored before his “Free Speech” segment because the network didn’t want him to say something critical of religion.<\/p>\n

In other words, as far as CBS is concerned, “free speech” is fine, so long as you parrot religious-right talking points on one night and don’t say anything that might offend a religious-right audience the next. What an impressive celebration of the right to free expression.<\/p>\n

I included the transcript of Rohrbough’s comments after the jump.
\n<\/p>\n

“I’m saddened and shaken by the shooting at an Amish school today, and last week’s school murders.<\/p>\n

“When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting. Since that day, I’ve tried to answer the question, ‘Why did this happen?’<\/p>\n

“This country is in a moral free-fall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak, without moral consequences and life has no inherent value.<\/p>\n

“We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. And I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children.<\/p>\n

“Suicide has become an acceptable action and has further emboldened these criminals. And we are seeing an epidemic increase in murder-suicide attacks on our children.<\/p>\n

“Sadly, our schools are not safe. In fact, we now witness that within our schools. Our children have become a target of terrorists from within the United States.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Needless to say, much of this simply false — God was never “expelled” from schools or anywhere else — and it’s the kind of segment that would fit just fine on “The 700 Club.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When CBS News added Katie Couric as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, the network also revamped the entire program, adding a “Free Speech” segment at the end of every broadcast. I’ve never been entirely clear on the point of the shtick, other than to give random people a minute-long monologue after the news. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}