I hate when people only refer to the media as "the liberal media." Over the years, like my entire adult life, I've worked in media and run several media outlets. My political party of choice was never a part of the decision to put my in charge. Which is good, since I don't claim either political party. For the record, I tend to be on the conservative side, which makes for the label of "liberal media" seem so odd to me.
But I do agree that many people in media have a liberal slant in their views. The same could be said for cooks, construction workers, accountants and bartenders. Though I think by and large, there are more liberals in media than a typical industry.
And some of those liberals can distort the truth. And some of those conservatives can distort the truth too. Such is the case with a Fox News opinion piece posted yesterday about the newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The headline for the column definitely caught my attention, as headlines are supposed to do: "Newspaper rejects ad over the word "Christian". The Knoxville News Sentinel, owned by Gannett rejected a classified ad that read: "Store closing sale - Cedar Springs Christian Store - Clinton Highway location - All merchandise, fixtures, slat walls must go. Sale through August 13," and then it included their phone number.
Anyone that has worked with front end systems with classified advertising will tell you that certain words will get flagged by the system to avoid discrimination. Running an ad for a 'Christian person to work in my business' is an illegal ad, and the newspaper tries to avoid those types of ads for obvious reasons.
The fine people of Knoxville and Fox News don't seem to be buying the system failure. I can assure all of you and all of my fellow Christian friends, this is not discrimination. This is a newspaper trying to protect itself from running discriminating ads and law suits. Nothing more and nothing less.
There was a failure by the classified department to not check all ads that get flagged in their system. That was a human error, probably by some working class person with no political agenda. Just someone trying to make a living and earn some commission. No word on whether they lost their job or not, but I certainly hope not.
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