Thank the Lord

Last week in class we talked about how Wolf Blitzer asked a victim of the Oklahoma tornado to thank the lord on camera.  I think it's pretty obvious that this is breaking from impartial truth seeking journalism.  What intrigued me though is that Wolf Blitzer has a huge amount of experience as a journalist.  So why would he have done this on the national stage?

I don't believe it was because of Blitzer bringing personal bias into his journalism.  He is actually Jewish, and the phase "thank the lord" which he uses is much more Christian than Jewish.  I think instead, the reason relates to a blog post by Colin McCune.  In his blog "flight 93", Colin remarks how in the movie "Flight 93", there is a scene in which characters spoke the "Lord's Prayer", seeming to put American Christianity up against the flight's problems.  In Colin's opinion, the media was forced to stick to the "official narrative" in which Christianity is the dominant religion.

I think this also applies to what Wolf Blitzer did.  I believe that as a reporter for a network trying to attract as many viewers as possible, he is forced to do what he thinks the majority of people will accept.  Especially considering how predominantly Christian Oklahoma is, I think that Blitzer asking this woman to thank the Lord was his way of appealing to the popular narrative of Christianity being the belief system of the U.S.