Bible Ban!!

[Jeremy]

This is a hilarious story and I thought I would share it. It first broke around the 13th of May and I remember reading it and finding it very hard to believe because I didn't think it logically made sense.

Anyway basically the story was that a number of hospitals in two states in Australia (there are 6 states in Australia) had banned bibles from their hospitals. It soon made headlines on the majority of crap newspapers and was carried as a segment in a lot of medicore news and current events programs. Presumably the news and current events programs that I rate as quality actually did their research on the topic.

Anywhere here is a link to the story:
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common ... 62,00.html

From the Melbourne Hearld Sun - A paper that employs "journalists" to make people fear everybody else as much as possible and promote paranoia while caring more about the plight of celebrities to find a good husband than the lives of non white Australians.

Here are some other headlines relating to the story:

"Bible Ban is Offensive" - Queensland Sunday Mail

"Catholic Hospital Defies Bible Ban" - Cathnews (a catholic news paper) - which ran with this -amusing story http://www.cathnews.com/news/605/85.php

"Bible Ban 'Crazy' " - The Daily Telegraph

"No Bible Ban in Qld Hospitals" - ABC Regional Online.

Now obviously that last headlines seems a little strange compared with the others and those of you who have read at least on of the articles I've linked probably think I must really hate religion to find this story amusing. Let me explain . The reason I didn't think the story made sense was because the idea of banning a dieing person in hospital from reading the bible does not seem like a politically correct decision at all to me - I couldn't understand at all how that could be justified. In fact the banning of any book didn't make sense to me as a decision you could label as politically correct.

So today my favourite tv show - Media Watch - which is a weekly 5 minute tv show exposing the typical low standards of journalism that commerical media leads to ran a story on this issue and speaking to the people at the hospitals involved revealed the shocking truth.

There is no bible ban - the news stories really relate to the fact that some hospitals do not have a ready available copy of the bible next to every bed. In fact a patient can request a copy of the bible (or the Koran and presumably other significant religious books) and they'll be given a copy of it. The hospitals in question had decided that having a bible next to every bed was simply too much unneccessary effort and here is the best part of this story. They made that decision over 10 years ago and have had the same policy about bibles since then.

So the issue that lead to Tony Abbott - a neo conservative Christian fundamentalist - to say this:

"I can inform the House that administrators in Victoria and in Queensland have just discovered a new priority – it's banning bibles,

This is not an infection control measure – it is a thought control measure.
It is political correctness gone crazy.

I say to public hospital administrations in these states 'Stop worrying about offending people. Start running public hospitals properly and give people bibles at a time when they probably most need them."

in parliament - was actually a policy that has been around for more than a decade.

What would we do without commercial media

[janis]

So the issue that lead to Tony Abbott - a neo conservative Christian fundamentalist - to say this:

"I can inform the House that administrators in Victoria and in Queensland have just discovered a new priority – it's banning bibles,

This is not an infection control measure – it is a thought control measure.
It is political correctness gone crazy.

lol, Abbot critises thought control then drops the "political correctness" phrase.
"political correctness" is such a vacuous phrase, and because it has no meaning it is a perfect propaganda technique to deflect the debate from the policy debate and the truth. Is this the "thought control" that Abbot so despises? It is clear he is in favour of "thought control" when it suits him, judging by the propaganda he produces regarding abortion, adoption, etc.

There is no bible ban - the news stories really relate to the fact that some hospitals do not have a ready available copy of the bible next to every bed. In fact a patient can request a copy of the bible (or the Koran and presumably other significant religious books) and they'll be given a copy of it. The hospitals in question had decided that having a bible next to every bed was simply too much unneccessary effort and here is the best part of this story. They made that decision over 10 years ago and have had the same policy about bibles since then.

so typical, poor journalism at it's best, all the usual media suspects get in on the action, without any regard to the truth, but more importantly without any desire to find out the truth.

Yeah, media watch is a great show

[smokefree]

Thats a retarded idea, if you ban the bible then you must ban the koran, the torah, and every other book of faith, which may offend non-christians. No matter what religion you are i think a book of faith can help you heal, if it comforts you anyway. I think its entirely up to every person whether they want to read it or not, otherwise STFU you dont have to read the shit. Funny shit man, thanks for posting.

[BainbridgeShred]

You, Jeremy O'Wheel, are destined to spend eternity in constant hell fire.

Enjoy.

[HighDemonslayer]

Journalists are like prostitutes, no offense to prostitutes intended.


Especially TV journalists...they have one qualification, to look good.

And have comprehensible English.

They dont need to read either, they can just parrot what is piped through their hidden earpiece.



-n

[BainbridgeShred]

Journalism as a medium is just terrible. It's impossible for a human being to convey a story without some level of bias. Journalists suck.

[jbalexdarkelf]

From being in a journalism class I can tell you that most journalists "try" not to write biased... but it happens anyways, and with both sides. But not meeeee, I wrote sports stories

[BainbridgeShred]

If I were to ever get into journalism, I'd want to write sports. Or just op-ed shit. It's impossible to write anything and be 100% objective. The human vocabulary is to extensive, and includes too many denotations.

[Jeremy]

I don't think all journalists are bad - in fact I have plenty of journalist heros - David Marr, Christopher Hitchens and Tony Jones to name a few. I think the problem is that commercial media companies make money depending on how popular their work is - so a newspaper that conveys a greater message of fear and controversy will typically have more people buy it and will make more money. Newspapers that have high standards of journalism always make less money because they don't run with sensationalised headlines and the report issues that are often a lot drier than something like banning bibles.