Come on, Mainstream Media!

Wild_Thing

It has been sickening to read the most recently leaked documents by Faithleaks. It makes me so angry because so many of us have experienced first hand the horrible policies of the Watchtower on abuse. I feel like these documents are finally the smoking gun we have all been hoping to expose the Watchtower, and so far, the only mainstream news that I have seen pick it up is Newsweek.

What will it take for the mainstream media pick this up and give it the attention it deserves? It is still early, so I am holding out hope. Come on, main stream media! Don't let me down!

dubstepped

Dailymail in UK picked it up too. Saw it on Facebook. Yeah, I'm with you though, I want to see it blow up.

scratchme1010

I'm not so sure that compared to the rest of religions, compared to the rest of things happening that are news on politics, sports and natural disasters, and considering that people care more about who wore what dress at some kind of award ceremony than about children being sexually abused, I doubt that it's going to happen soon.

I would love to be proven wrong.

steve2

One of the major contributing factors behind the media’s robust coverage of sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Church is the sheer size of the religion: Hundreds of millions worldwide.

By contrast, JW organization is a very tiny group who barely register in most people’s consciousness beyond seeing JWs as a few religious nutters.

Moreover, there has been a shift in socio-cultural thinking regarding the treatment of religious and cultural minorities with an increased sensitivity to not overly condemning these smaller groups (at least in the West) for their “heterodox” (ie., unusual and even fringe by mainstream standards) beliefs and practices

Consequently, tiny groups like JWs currently achieve a kind of sanitised religious status that unintentionally prevents media from more widespread scrutiny over JW organization’s shameful practices in responding to allegations of child abuse in their midst.

tor1500

Hi,

I've asked this question several times on here....why the mainstream media won't pick up this story...No JW's are not as big as the Catholic religion..it's not about the size but the lives of children and women...so because it's a not as big as other religions, this type of behavior is accepted.

At this time everyone is being exposed...The gov't down to entertainment. Day after day more folks are coming forth.

Is there a hungry reporter out there that doesn't have a story...now the story is Trump Trump Trump...if a reporter took on this story, sure it may start a small fire, but when they finish, it will be a big story...when all the info is brought out how they handle things, the story will blast...no it may not sound like a big story now but the more the org. is investigated the bigger the story will become...even though Watergate is a much bigger subject the reporters followed their noses and kept researching....

The real deal is that, if people are to come into the org., let them know what's going on & if they still want to join, then so be it...there are many Catholics that still attend church, even after the scandal...don't think the Catholic Church was eager to comply, like the witnesses, they most likely dragged their feet with info., until it could no longer be kept a secret....

The Media picked up Russia's ban on JW's, that was news worthy...

I think the info is starting with little leaks here & there & just a matter of time....

Yes, many of us on here are frustrated and want them to be exposed in one clean swoop, but it may be better little by little because the org. will not be able to plug up all the holes....the chariot won't be able to keep up...

Remember the clay feet the witnesses talk about.....well they are describing themselves.

Tor

Londo111

I do wonder what NBC is doing. They did the Dateline episode...and huge settlements made the nightly news. But since then? Crickets.

It almost makes me wonder if Watchtower has people of influence in some of these news organizations.

steve2

Tor, I do not disagree with you in principle. Anything that imperils children’s well-being is worthy of media exposure.

You cite the instance of media focusing on JW banning in Russia - again it is a numbers “game”. All media see is 150,000 plus Russians belonging to a banned religious group. Ironically, that’s big news. Even so, coverage in the West on that issue has not been that eye-catching...or sustained.

The media are also aware that many issues such as sexual abuse allegations in the organization that would otherwise be completely unnoticed are driven by a few “activists” -and, with one or two exceptions, keep their distance. I do not mean the term “activists” in a pejorative sense - the media is aware that there are all manner of activists trying to get one issue or another “out there”. The exception is the ARC which received widespread reporting in Australia and the United Kingdom, among other countries - to a level similar to coverage of Russia’s JW banning. So, it is not entirely correct that the issue has received no coverage.

JeffT

You have to keep in mind what drives the media, like everyone else, it's money. The question reporters ask is not "is this an important story?" It's "will this story attract viewers/readers?" In the case of JW's the answers to those questions are "maybe" and "not many." So we get a story here or there because it will interest a few people, I don't think the media will ever go into full blown coverage of JW issues for a simple reason: if you ask a large number of people if they care about Jehovah's Witnesses and what they do, the answer will be "no."

jwundubbed

It isn't just that the JWs aren't as big as the Catholic church. There is a delusion that all JWs are taught and that is playing a big part in this conversation. We were all taught that the world was watching us, that the JWs were the center of the universe. The reality is that every single person I have spoken to after leaving the cult has almost no idea who the JWs are. Every time I tell someone I was a JW they ask me what that is.

No one is covering this 'big leak' because it is only a big leak to the people involved in it. To everyone else it doesn't matter any more than it would matter if a leak of the same type was made about the policies of the ONE Campaign (an international campaign with 8 million members). To them it would be huge, but we are all asking what that is.

Catholicism is the original christian religion. Every other christian religion is a spin-off of that. The JWs are spin-off of a spin-off of a spin-off. No one else cares or even knows who or what we are. If you want mainstream attention then you have to get the Jehovahs Witnesses into mainstream media in the first place. Most JWs don't have the charisma for mainstream media. If you had some people who understood mainstream media and also had charisma... A youtube channel that was entertaining and highlighted the crazy of the JWs might take off. People love watching crazy, when it is entertaining and done well. If you had some entertaining people doing a podcast that views the world from the crazy perspecive of the JWs that might also work. But the JWs and the exJWs seem to think that the world will care about a group of people who don't care about and are not part of the world. This should be a 'Duh!' moment, and instead ex-jws are dumbfounded as to why the rest of the world doesn't care about them. The rest of the world doesn't have any reason to care about the JWs.

One Campaign - International ogranization with 8 million members.

Catholic count by country - Wikipedia from Catholic citations

Catholic count by country - Pew Research Center (1910 to 2010)

Jehovahs Witness count by country - Wikipedia from JW citations

Unable to find statistics on the JW religion that don't come from the JW.

darkspilver

JeffT: The question reporters ask is not "is this an important story?" It's "will this story attract viewers/readers?" In the case of JW's the answers to those questions are "maybe" and "not many."

That's why people have to follow the links to those stories and articles!

I posted a link to the Newsweek article on reddit which has got 2,300 views (as I posted the thread, I can see the number) - many more people will have followed the link to Newsweek from other places too - and it all adds up.

Leaked documents reveal the Jehovah's Witnesses Church attempted to cover up a sex scandal - Newsweek (US), Jan 10, 2018

Then there's the example of these two 'end-of-year' popular articles:

Come on, Mainstream Media!

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