By Kevin Banet

In this column we coin the term “rainbow journalism.”

If you’re young, trendy and hip, and are strolling through downtown Minneapolis, you might grasp a copy of City Pages from the newstand. Its stories, appealing graphics, attractive restaurant ads and reviews of the local night club scene would seem to set you up for an upbeat weekend.

But look a little further, and you’ll uncover a fanatically-driven editorial policy that promotes sleeze and liberal causes. For example, “Savage Love” is a weekly sex advice column by the notorious sex activist Dan Savage. His recent advice includes using online resources to find a worker in the sex industry for a reader’s 22-year old mentally-ill brother. Ugh. The column is filled with trashy advice and crude language.

City Pages is part of a chain of 16 “alternative” free weekly papers around the country with a hefty combined circulation of 1.8 million. You wonder, an alternative to what? It’s an alternative to what is wholesome and true; City Pages promotes strip clubs, homosexuality, and condemns any moral message of Christianity. It scorns patriotism as well. One front-page display contained a mock-up photo of the Statue of Liberty with the words, “One nation under tacos.”

Screamed at readers

Around 1900, yellow journalism screamed at its readers with sensational headlines, weakly-supported facts, with a show of being legitimate by claiming to champion the underdog. Today’s yellow journalism jabs at morality, criticizes Christian organizations, all with name-calling and mockery. The only underdog it champions is the radical homosexual who demands that all of his sexual practices become codified in law, while crushing those with contrary beliefs.

It’s a kind of news adolescence that never grows up. Let’s call it “rainbow journalism.”

More than one hundred years ago, newspapers of integrity separated themselves from yellow journalism, and medical professionals likewise distanced themselves from snake-oil salesmen and abortionists. It was a time for the growing professions of the day to disavow themselves from shady and base practices.

But some news outlets never grow up. Like the crowd that shouted for Christ’s condemnation on Good Friday, City Pages relies on a lot of emotion, few facts, and is quick to slam anyone who stands for morality.

Hate-mongering

It’s no wonder then, that every few weeks New City trots out hate-mongering articles against Christian rock musician and preacher Bradlee Dean and his ministry, You Can Run International, based in Annandale, just outside of Minneapolis. (Disclosure: You Can Run International is a client of our PR firm.) New City has covered Dean’s defamation lawsuit against MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in snarling tones. They accuse his ministry of not only gay-bashing, but now have made dangerous accusations about his family.

I don’t care what your politics are, but going after your enemy’s family is just plain evil. What could be done against the paper if it were not protected by a too-broadly defined First Amendment interpretation today that allows the big media to destroy …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism