Methinks the believers complain too much

"John Humphrys has commissioned a poll from Yougov to help him sell his new book, In God We Doubt. It shows that 16% of the 2,200 people who responded defined themselves as atheists, 9% agnostics, 28% said they believed in God and 26% said they believed in some undefined “something”.
That comes to a total of 79%. The article reporting the poll didn’t say where the other 21% stood on the belief/non-belief spectrum.
42% thought religion harmful, a statistic which Humphrys explains away with a remark so obvious one wonders why he bothered to make it: “One reason might be the publicity attracted by a handful of mad mullahs and their hate-filled rhetoric.”

[...]

And when spokespeople for the 35% who don’t believe begin to emerge – people like Richard Dawkins, Peter Hitchens, AC Grayling and others – they are denounced from the pulpits and the newspaper columns as “fanatics” and “extremists”. There is a positive library of newspaper articles accumulating expressing this opinion.

[...]

What started out as a campaign by fundamentalist Christians to make the word “atheist” into a term of abuse, which could not be uttered without the addition of an adjective such as “extremist” or “fundamentalist”, has now been taken up big time by the establishment intelligentsia who have never been able to shake off their childhood indoctrination. It’s clear they feel guilty when they even try."

Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society, 7. September 2007

An excellent comment!

Religion beat became a test of faith

"WHEN Times editors assigned me to the religion beat, I believed God had answered my prayers.
As a serious Christian, I had cringed at some of the coverage in the mainstream media. Faith frequently was treated like a circus, even a freak show.
I wanted to report objectively and respectfully about how belief shapes people's lives. Along the way, I believed, my own faith would grow deeper and sturdier.
But during the eight years I covered religion, something very different happened."

William Lobdell, LA Times, July 21, 2007

A quite interesting article on how a reporter on religion lost his faith.

LEFT BEHIND: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media

"But as this [American] study documents, coverage of religion not only overrepresents some voices and underrepresents others, it does so in a way that is consistently advantageous to conservatives.

[...]

Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.

On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable new channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders. "

Media Matters, May 29. 2007