On Wednesday, the collective American media pledged to cover a more diverse selection of incredibly small groups of maniacs. The move came after several weeks of unblinking coverage of Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Church in Gainesville, Florida and their plans to burn the Koran, despite the church’s miniscule membership.
“It’s a basic matter of fairness,” said New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. “We’ve spent a ton of time reporting on a church with a congregation of 50 people, who not only want to burn the Koran but think their Christian god is telling them to do it. So we have to give equal time to comparably sized, comparably insane religious sects. We’ve already sent two reporters to Des Moines, where there’s a tiny cult that worships Jim Backus.”
Shortly after the Times‘ announcement, other news organizations followed suit. USA Today is planning a three-part series on a temple in Galveston, Texas dedicated to the monster truck Bigfoot, while MSNBC has prepared an hour-long special about a church in Bakersfield, California that believes Jesus Christ was made of fudge.
“When compared to the total US population, 50 people is an infinitesimally small, statistically insignificant number,” said CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “That’s only slightly less than the number of people who believe Jamie Fahr is the antichrist. Which is why I’ll be interviewing some of those people this week.”
FOX News did not join the public pledge, in part because it has already been devoting a large amount of its airtime catering to a small, deranged audience that believes President Obama is a Muslim.
I’ve heard that Tiger Woods is a Buddhist. Perhaps