Customer Reviews

From Yahweh to Yahoo!: The Religious Roots of the Secular Press (History of Communication)

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I found this book to be a very useful and fresh approach to the complicated relationship between religion and the media. My own research efforts have discovered similar hints, that the media may indeed have a kind of liberal Christian ethic, which makes them oppose right-wing Christianity. This book gives a solid historical analysis, and is written in a very engaging style--I highly recommend it.

First, this book contains almost no original research in it at all. Some of it is so unoriginal as to be cliched, such as his essay on how Jesus would be covered by today's news media. Second, Underwood finds evidence of religion's influence anywhere and everywhere in the news media, which defies the facts, logic, and common sense. Third, it is usually difficult to tell when Underwood is stating his own opinion or interpretation versus summarizing one of his source's, and it also is often difficult to tell whether or not he agrees with the sources that he's quoting or paraphrasing. The book is mostly a waste of time unless you have never previously read anything on religion and U.S. news media.