THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS:

Televangelical tentacles: TV evangelist Pat Robertson is threatening to mobilise millions of his Christian viewers and "de-liberalise" the US judiciary (Philip James, November 19, 2004, The Guardian)

There is a defining moment in the life of every news organisation that marks a coming of age. In the case of CNN it was the opening bombardment of the first Gulf war. The upstart cable channel went live to Peter Arnett in Baghdad, while the traditional broadcast networks could only watch from their New York studios in shock and awe.

In the case of the Manchester Guardian, it was the day in 1959 when the paper reached beyond its Mancunian roots to become a national newspaper. And in the case of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson's daily evangelical news broadcast, it was November 3 2004. The day it became clear that George Bush had won a second term.

This day formally marked the transformation of The 700 Club. No longer could it be viewed as an outlet of relevance only to the loony Christian right. Not only did it join the ranks of the mainstream media. In many ways it supplanted them. Suddenly, if you seriously wanted to take the pulse of America, you had to tune your TV to the news division of televangelism.

The 700 Club has been operating under the radar of traditional journalistic scrutiny for over two decades. Anchored by Pat Robertson, he initially created it as a vehicle to promote his personal political ambitions. After his failed presidential bid in 1988, Robertson founded the Christian Coalition and embarked on an ambitious plan to influence the mainstream political agenda from the inside out.

He used The 700 Club as the marketing and political advocacy tool of this plan. The broadcast's focus is instructing viewers on how they could best lobby elected officials to enact the Christian right's agenda.

Robertson's show regularly has more viewers than CNN.

CBN's nightly newscast is better than CNN's or any of the networks.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 20, 2004 6:04 PM