-By Warner Todd Huston
A new study by the Culture and Media Institute of Pope Benedict’s retirement reveals constant attacks, ridicule, and repeated allusions to scandals as ABC, CBS, and NBC reported on Benedict’s final days.
The survey reveals that the Catholic Church was repeatedly deemed “troubled,” the Church was attacked for not “modernizing,” the real-world Church was constantly compared to the fictitious world of novelist Dan Brown and his Da Vinci Code series of books, and late night TV hosts turned Benedict into a butt of jokes.
On February 11, Pope Benedict announced his retirement due to ill health setting off the big three networks into attack mode.
“From Benedict’s Feb. 11 resignation through the evening of Feb. 27, the day before it took effect, the networks referred to the Catholic Church as a troubled institution 122 times and aired the word ‘scandal’ 87 times in 112 reports. Anchors and reporters suggested that the Church must modernize (32 times) and pressed for change in issues regarding women (7 times) and gays (13 times). At times, they trivialized the first resignation of a Pope since the 1500s as ‘worthy of a Dan Brown novel’ (ABC’s Harris again.) and sensationalized it by entertaining theories about other reasons Benedict might be stepping down.”
On the lighter side, over the two-week period, network morning shows continuously aired jokes about Benedict staged by late night comedy shows such as Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.
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Bashing Benedict: Networks Slam Retiring Pope”
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