Thanks for this. This is great! Blinkity blink blink lol.

Thanks. That is a good idea!

Exactly my point. ^_^

Yes, but Toni unfortunately is not backed by a multimillion dollar news organization. And if Scientology does go overboard, he should speak up so someone helps him.

Thank you Mr. Ortega! I never thought I would get an answer from you just because you get thousands of comments a day.
I look forward to watching you on Leah’s show, if it were not for you, I really would not have known about this abusive “religion” cult.
I mean don’t get me wrong.. I always knew that Scientology was weird but not to these extremes.

I would be furious if a church asked my kid that.

Honestly, I have it running in the background while I play a game. I couldn’t watch it on tv.

Thanks. I used to watch that back in the day and it could be really hilarious but I didn’t like how it had a lot of things that were just kind of chit chat. I did not have the patience to wait for the nuggets lol. I guess you could say I’m high maintenance when it came to laughs watching MST3K lol. Maybe if they had sets of funniest moments.

Yes, I would agree with that. I’ve seen a lot of surveys lately showing the lack of trust that most Americans now have in the media, and it is for precisely that “let’s just print the PR” reason. They’re not interested in truth or justice anymore, in the main. They are interested in serving the ideological whims of their half dozen owners, or the green paper god in which they trust. They have forsaken, for the most part, their constitutional role within the nation entirely.

I just re-read the first sentence of my previous post and I want to make something clear: I’m not a journalist; Dan Harris is. He has covered Scientology before and had spoken to Monique Yingling on a previous occasion. Sorry if I caused any misunderstanding. I still stand by what I said in the rest of my reply.

I’m sick and tired of giving Scientology “the benefit of the doubt”. We’ve gone past that stage long ago. Scientology has received enough media coverage for people to realize that it’s not like any other church. The cult is commonly known for being a vexatious litigant, charging ludicrous fees for acquiring “religious” knowledge and for having 11 of its members–including Hubbard’s third wife–convicted of crimes that led them to prison. Scientology hurts people. It damages communities. The cult is a medical, financial and religious fraud. Anyone who takes time to look at Scientology’s history and remember details will notice the unsavoury patterns with this totalitarian group.

Journalists serve the public not only by informing it of what’s going on at present but also to remind them of the past (as it relates to the news topic being covered and to provide context). We, individually, might have short-term memory, get distracted, or even be misled. We might not yet have been BORN when certain events took place. It is the reporter’s job to bring issues to our attention, to remind us of what happened before, to explain things clearly to improve general understanding, and to be curious enough to ask questions, search for answers and follow data trails. Journalists are in the profession of searching, retrieving, evaluating, comparing and sharing information. There is no excuse for prolonged ignorance or apathy.

So why do so many reporters treat Scientology as if it’s a new, mysterious phenomenon? Why aren’t they familiar with Scientology’s infiltration into local schools, government, and drug rehabs? Without getting into a long spiel about how the news industry has changed dramatically, I believe that money, fear and the lack of interest are to blame. To be fair, exploring Scientology IS a daunting task (just getting a handle on its concepts, special terminology, and the volumes of written material requires utmost patience). Some assignment editors feel that Scientology isn’t worth the time nor the effort. There’s also the lingering chill at the prospect of being sued by the “church” (review the lawsuit against TIME magazine’s Richard Behar who wrote “Scientology: The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power”. Behar/TIME won in the end but at great expense). I feel the primary drive among networks is no longer about the quality of the news story itself but rather on calculating the number of viewers and revenue it gets. Business concerns and instant gratification over public benefit and time-invested stories. This would go to explain why the main slant of Scientology coverage leans on celebrities such as Tom Cruise…for over 30 years! Maddening!!

I don’t want to entirely dump on Dan Harris; it’s likely he’s interested in what he reports on and works hard to deliver the best job he can. But he’s one man in a system that often doesn’t support individual initiatives unless there’s an immediate, visible jackpot to hit. No matter how pertinent or valuable a news story is, if the investigative work takes too much time or is costly, it will be passed over. It’s cheaper and easier to just re-print articles or social media soundbites that others wrote instead of doing the hard ground work oneself. This is the state of news today: mass regurgitation above original reporting.