I'm falling out of love with the BBC. Not that I was ever in love with the Corporation, but the strong relationship we once had is cooling fast, as it is with most TV. (Marva Dawn counsels divorce, though we're just going through limited "quality time" at the moment.)

The thing that's really driving me away is the news. Television news is the subtle god that we look to for knowledge and oracles, when, as God's people, we really should be looking elsewhere.

Many of us this side of the Atlantic may find it easy, from a relatively left-leaning atmosphere, to criticize FOX News and other US channels. We may similarly think that the Al-Jazeeras of this world are leading propagandists behind which the powers and principalities are at work. But are we so blind that we think dear old Auntie, RTE, ITN, et al have escaped corruption and are the last bastions of prophetic objectivity and bias-free exposé? Do we still hold to the idea that, whatever other depravity and nonsense is on the box, the news is a worthy and valid thing for us as Christians from which to absorb our worldview? Do we continue to justify it using the well-worn and context-abused notion of "Bible in one hand, newspaper (remote control?!) in the other"?

Don't get me wrong, I still firmly believe in applying Scripture to culture, of discerning "Biblical faith for a changing world". But my contention is that TV news is a symptom of that culture, not a reliable critic of it.

My licence fee gets me what? Sheer entertainment even at 6.30am, 1pm, 6pm and 10pm, though now it is 24/7. Wildly overused graphics replace substance; rhetoric and the gratuitous desire for the opinions of "experts" replace facts; a passion to be first replaces a passion for truth. I am exposed to an obsession with violence and shock; vast money and resources are spent to achieve the dubious benefit of having vast numbers "there, on the ground"; editorial decisions show highly questionable judgments and morals.

I become creatively dulled; titillated by violence; obsessed with information, but unquestioning about its validity and value; opinionated but unable to form my own opinions; craving trivia, but bored with in-depth analysis; doused not with realism but with cynicism. And I keep coming back for more. How apt are Hosea's words to God's people then - destroyed for lack of (true, wise, godly) knowledge; overtaken by a spirit of whoredom that leads them to consult idols for oracles.

Undoubtedly we live in a world marred with tragedy and, let's be bold, sin. But is a situation any more tragic because we hear about it quickly, or first? What does it actually help us to see prolonged pictures of starving children and hear gratuitous reports of hideous incidents? We must respond, as Christians, to the tragedy of the world, but ogling it on our screens on a daily basis is no response, nor an incentive to respond. Instead we develop the same compassion fatigue that marks many around us.

This isn't a call to be pious or stick our heads in the sand. But we know what the world is like, it doesn't take too much to give us a pitying view of the creation Christ came to redeem. Primarily we see it in the Bible and in our own experience as individuals and the church, the body of Christ on earth. Surely the magazines, letters, websites and reports of Christian organisations across the world give us a better picture of the world in which the church works.

I'm not calling for the boycott of all news - I still listen to news bulletins on the radio, which admittedly still have biases but, lacking in images and resources, they also restrict the scope of the powers and principalities. I'm just asking what shapes our view of the world? Those paid to entertain and titillate, driven by the powers to overstep their vocation? Or the Scriptures and the worldwide experience of God's people, the church? Are we formed by the TV News or the Good News?

Ben Walker

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