Of course the media wants Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, or someone else who’s going to say something controversial, and ignorant. The mainstream media is not trying to promote Christianity, they're trying to entice viewers and their chosen method is pandering. Sex sells, pandering to peoples basest emotions attracts an audience, controversy captures peoples attention. How many shows on today pander to greed? (i.e. Deal or no deal) To lust? (Desperate Housewives, among many others)

Of course they want Jerry or Pat or Bubba the reactionary fundamentalist, if he doesn’t say something controversial, and ignorant, they can always ask him about something controversial, and ignorant, and generate the controversy they use to attract viewers.

The media will have an intelligent, articulate, reasonable spokesperson from mainstream Christianity on the air when they decide they want to represent Christianity in a truthful, positive light. In other words, when hell freezes over.

I think that most journalists, like most university educated Americans, cannot tell the difference between Jerry Falwell and "an intelligent, articulate, reasonable spokesperson from mainstream Christianity." In their eyes we are all victims of a medieval superstition. It's ignorance on their part, not ill will.

To supplement Nick's statement, I think the level of understanding of most general interest news persons about so many topics is so low that they're incapable of understanding much of what they hear. We're reaping the results of decades of educational decay. A couple years ago, a local newspaper covered our parish's Easter services. The article was accompanied by a couple photos, including one of a young girl and her mother standing during the services, with the mother pointing to a page in the service bulletin. The picture's caption referred to the service bulletin as a "song book."