CBS Should Have Punted on Focus on the Family Ad (xposted from my journal)
Wouldn't that make for great copy somewhere? Seems so natural, but I didn't see it in any of the coverage.
OK, so here's the thing about the ad. Yes, it avoided negativity and yes, it was a far cry from picketing abortion clinics. I feel CBS set a terrible precedent and has now placed itself in the position of arbitrating advocacy, which is not only an awfully clunky turn of phrase but a terrible position in which to be. And I have faith that anyone who hadn't previously heard of Focus on the Family and was fooled by the innocuous ad into visiting their website will immediately click on (no pun intended) the fact that they are a bigoted, hateful group. In short, while they can claim a propaganda victory for having arm-wrestled CBS into airing their ad, this will not help their eternal fund-raising efforts; the only people who care about their tiny victory are the ones who already donate to them. And we should therefore all be happy, because they spent $2,800,000 to accomplish absolutely nothing.
Which brings me to my point. If I did donate to Focus on the Family, I might reasonably be upset that they squandered $2.8m for a shallow and empty victory. Their budget is not unlimited, after all-in fact, they laid off 200 people towards the end of 2008, many of whom presumably have families upon which to focus. But even assuming that the castaways interrupted their busy schedules of peeping on their neighbors to see whether or not they really are nudist lesbian witches, blamed their unemployment on Obama or Illegal Immigrants or Jews and went out to find work in a more honest field such as used-car sales, one must question what a group that is so interested in children could have accomplished with $2.8m
Here's a short list of some of the things that Focus on the Family might have focused on with $2,800,000:
Giving flu shots to 560,000 at-risk family members in America
Distributing malaria nets to 280,000 at-risk families in Africa
Paying the annual salaries of 5,833 teachers in Afghanistan
Paying the annual fuel cost to heat 28,000 elementary school classrooms in Afghanistan
Providing 186,666 one-on-one weekly reading tutoring hours to inner city children in America
Installing 7,671 computers in girls' schools in rural Cambodia
Giving 77,777 of the children in refugee camps outside Darfur one year of schooling
This is why Focus on the Family disgusts me. It's not their odious views, their bigotry or their ignorance of basic Psychology. It's their hypocrisy, their shallow-minded obsessions and their constant, self-aggrandizing, media circus. It's the way they completely ignore the example of quiet, selfless service that Jesus set and twist his words so as to best suit their political agenda. I'm no theologian, but it was my understanding that the Scriptures they constantly cite as self-justification should be a shield, not a sword. And it should be finally obvious to the followers of Jesus that this despicable group is only Focused on Itself.
OK, so here's the thing about the ad. Yes, it avoided negativity and yes, it was a far cry from picketing abortion clinics. I feel CBS set a terrible precedent and has now placed itself in the position of arbitrating advocacy, which is not only an awfully clunky turn of phrase but a terrible position in which to be. And I have faith that anyone who hadn't previously heard of Focus on the Family and was fooled by the innocuous ad into visiting their website will immediately click on (no pun intended) the fact that they are a bigoted, hateful group. In short, while they can claim a propaganda victory for having arm-wrestled CBS into airing their ad, this will not help their eternal fund-raising efforts; the only people who care about their tiny victory are the ones who already donate to them. And we should therefore all be happy, because they spent $2,800,000 to accomplish absolutely nothing.
Which brings me to my point. If I did donate to Focus on the Family, I might reasonably be upset that they squandered $2.8m for a shallow and empty victory. Their budget is not unlimited, after all-in fact, they laid off 200 people towards the end of 2008, many of whom presumably have families upon which to focus. But even assuming that the castaways interrupted their busy schedules of peeping on their neighbors to see whether or not they really are nudist lesbian witches, blamed their unemployment on Obama or Illegal Immigrants or Jews and went out to find work in a more honest field such as used-car sales, one must question what a group that is so interested in children could have accomplished with $2.8m
Here's a short list of some of the things that Focus on the Family might have focused on with $2,800,000:
Giving flu shots to 560,000 at-risk family members in America
Distributing malaria nets to 280,000 at-risk families in Africa
Paying the annual salaries of 5,833 teachers in Afghanistan
Paying the annual fuel cost to heat 28,000 elementary school classrooms in Afghanistan
Providing 186,666 one-on-one weekly reading tutoring hours to inner city children in America
Installing 7,671 computers in girls' schools in rural Cambodia
Giving 77,777 of the children in refugee camps outside Darfur one year of schooling
This is why Focus on the Family disgusts me. It's not their odious views, their bigotry or their ignorance of basic Psychology. It's their hypocrisy, their shallow-minded obsessions and their constant, self-aggrandizing, media circus. It's the way they completely ignore the example of quiet, selfless service that Jesus set and twist his words so as to best suit their political agenda. I'm no theologian, but it was my understanding that the Scriptures they constantly cite as self-justification should be a shield, not a sword. And it should be finally obvious to the followers of Jesus that this despicable group is only Focused on Itself.