The Toronto Star, the largest circulation newspaper in Canada has upped its commitment to readers of the daily horoscope to just under a half page. That’s right, a half page of editorial (as opposed to paid advertising) space for people who believe that the day of your birth dictates the path of your life. And all this at a time when other ‘religious’ space allocations are being cut. (The paper once published over two pages of “church” copy and advertising each weekend, and then priced it so high that churches could no longer afford to advertise.)
Can you imagine the outcry if the paper printed a half page of Bible promises? Or wisdom from the book of Proverbs? Or how about a half page each day from various Evangelical pastors on knowing God’s will for your life? (With the pastors receiving payment for so doing, as writer Jonathan Cainer undoubtedly does.)
This isn’t the first time this has been mentioned here, however; so I want to simply reiterate what I wrote in March of this year…
Their followers maintain religious devotion to their every pronouncement. Their right to millions of dollars of free newspaper space around the world is never questioned, in fact many of those papers pay them for inclusion in their print and online editions.
These same media outlets are very cautious about granting space of any kind to Jewish, Christian or Muslim faith groups because that would be “sectarian” and they don’t want to be seen as promoting this or that religion. So why is an exception made for this one group?
They, of course are astrologers and their daily encyclical is usually called “Your horoscope.” Their belief system is secularized predestination — Calvinists, take note — believing that our lives are guided by the stars, in various ways, depending on the star (or Zodiac) sign in place at our time of birth.
My usual tongue-in-cheek reply to this is, “I don’t believe in astrology, but then again, we Geminis are natural skeptical.”
Kidding aside, why does one faith group get preferential treatment? And how can any media outlet turn down any request from any religious group when they already grant one unfettered access to their readers?
Comments: This is a piece about press discrimination or media favoritism. Comments as to the merits of astrology will be deleted.