Villain: The Sunday Telegraph

[robotsmfc]

I got an email today that was sent last week from the AHS (National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Societies) as I'm de facto leader of the Solihull Atheist student society, whose press secretary was very excited about a journalist from the Sunday Telegraph wanting to run an article on their work.

By the time I'd got the email it was too late for me to send them any comment, so I emailed back with my apologies, et cetera, and said I'd look out for the article.

The reply was slightly less excited, however, as it seems the f**k**g Torygraph ( ) has gone and printed an article that the Daily Mail would be proud of, and the Sun would wince at the factual content of. Have a look at this:

Telegraph article - To save you the trouble, here are all the press links. The journalist was a ratbag as it turns out. He pretended to be really onside and interested and said he'd write a feature about the AHS' success... and then he wrote a scaremonger piece about atheists targeting schools. However, it turned into a real success anyway because we hit back and got coverage all over the blogs and two new universities signed up! I even had a little forum chat with Richard Dawkins over it!

The offending article:
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5219687/Atheists-target-UK-schools.html

Our responses in full. The official one and then the less well moderated one when I was pissed off yesterday morning.
www.ahsstudents.org.uk/press/releases/3
blogs.secularportal.com/2009/...ngly-familiar/

Our coverage:
friendlyatheist.com/2009/04/2...theist-groups/
richarddawkins.net/articleCom...page2#comments
scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/how_to_distort_atheist_goals.php
atheistblogger.com/2009/04/26...ing-for-jesus/
friendlyatheist.com/2009/04/27/atheists-do-not-target-uk-schools/

Bloody journalists

Luckily their attempt at a hatchet job has turned into a PR success for the AHS, so some good has come out of it.

[amberaleman]

Although much less poisonous than the Mail, the Telegraph still has to pander to its readers' prejudices.

Telegraph readers are (or are assumed to be!) mostly elderly, conservative and Anglican. They fear that their agreeable way of life is under threat from the forces of darkness. Those forces are represented not just by atheists and humanists but also socialists, immigrants, gay people, single mothers, drug addicts - and I daresay football fans as well!

The paper publishes largely misleading stories about how these dark forces are on the rise, in order to frighten its readers into buying more copies of the paper to check whether things have got any worse.

That, in the words of Private Eye, is how journalism works!

[thevicar]

I'd like to point out that (I'd say) the majority of Anglicans are not afraid of 'atheists and humanists, socialists, immigrants, gay people, single mothers, drug addicts - and I daresay football fans as well'. I can tick off all of those (not openly in one case) at the church I attend. Yes, there is still work to be done on the problems that some of the old guard have with homosexuals and a lot of us are working on that.

The Torygraph, on the other hand, panders to those who call themselves moral Christians and then never associate with the churches.

I went to UCL, can't get much more humanist than the Godless of Gower Street. 'Nowt wrong with equal access for both groups. My RE lessons (at a church backed school) certainly covered far more than just christianity. Given the blatantly low level of knowledge of any of the major 'religious' philosophies in the vast majority of kids I come into contact with, I didn't think they were still teaching RE. Whether we should be telling school children what to believe is another matter. In my time, the only teacher who tried to tell us what to believe was a militant socialist most of the others simply tried to teach us to think for ourselves.

Interestingly at uni, the CU (which threw me out - I'm a bad person apparently) and Jewish society were banned from using union property for having a constitution that would only allow christians to run the group. The Islamic, Buddhist and AHS groups all had similar caveats in their constitutions were allowed in.

[votp]

Surely being openly atheist at your church must enliven Sundays a bit? How about Satanists? Is there a place for them in the modern church? Not sure if they read the Torygraph though, probably more of a Daily Mail reader. And while I am here - OI! Sainburys! Why not put the newspaper stand with the Daily Mail somewhere other than near the door so that I can avoid tripping over doddery middle England every time I visit.

[thevicar]

Cheeky git, I obviously screwed up my quotation. Still I have my suspicions about some members of the congregation ;o)

[Sultan of Cannock- SRFC]

I to laugh, though, when the Athiests put those adverts on the buses claiming that "God Probably Doesn't Exist" and Radio 4's Today Programme brought together a church representative and an athiest.

The churchman fulminated and fumed for a while and then the athiest said "Why should i have to listen to him just because he's got a pretend friend?"

[robotsmfc]

I met the BHA's representative from the team behind that advert.

Lovely bloke with a very interesting job.