A small independent church in Topeka Kansas Know for their extreme ideologies against homosexuality, abortion, and many more Infamously known nation wide for their protests of shooting victims, soldiers funerals, and gay rights activists/organizations

The church is known well around the country because protests garner loads of media attention. While that is ultimately their goal, one would be hard pressed to find a media outlet that paints these radicals in a positive light. Could it be that objective news organizations use their influence to show bias against the WBC protests? That is what will be explored in this presentation.

Church only has around 40 members, mostly from the same family. Petition submitted to WhiteHouse.gov to label them as a hate group received over 35,000 signatures. Often labeled as “The Most Hated Family is America” by many people. Group is currently being monitored by the Anti- Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center

Their primary goal is publicity, and they protest multiple times a week to get a much publicity as possible. They issue press releases thanking god for disasters that end in the deaths of multiple people, and this gets the news networks talking. If tragedy strikes the country you are bound to see something having to do with this group. Many reports and articles are written about their protest. Rinse and repeat.

Well: “the WBC still believes vehemently that people who do not subscribe to its particular brand of ultra-conservative, hate-filled Christianity are doomed to the fiery pits of hell” – Huffington Post “The view wasn’t well received. The hacking group Anonymous hinted that its members would target Westboro Baptist Church if the funeral protests go forth” – Washington Times “escaped the church - which is described as a cult and hate group” and “the craziest thing that church members had ever made her do. She replied: 'To pray for people to die‘” – Daily Mail “disgusting group attempted to protest the funerals” – Perez Hilton

News media seem as if they are all against the Westboro Baptist Church without saying anything. They know they have to try and be as objective as possible, but obviously this can’t always be the case, and most news sources seem to treat the WBC as an exception. That these people deserve to be hated as much as they are. News organizations and journalists will use as many subtle tools as possible to frame them as the bad guys. It feels almost like an unspoken agreement among journalists, to peg an organization so hated by America with their stories as best they can.

Many of the online journalists from the articles mentioned and more seem to attempt at not sounding bias against the WBC, but they still couldn’t help but frame them in a negative light. They do not really feel bias, but rather silently helping the news world show how this hate group is without actually slandering them. Perez Hilton is the only one who I can understand had bias to his blog posts, since he is a blogger and does not try to pretend to be a journalist.