For decades, television newsrooms held enormous power over what Americans saw and what they never heard about. Producers chose the lead story, decided which events deserved follow-up coverage, and determined which stories would disappear after a few seconds or never make air at all.

That power has weakened, but it has not disappeared.

Today, independent media provides an opportunity to ask a question that traditional news organizations too often avoid: Why do some stories receive national attention while others with serious implications are barely acknowledged?

On Real Life Network, The Daniel Cohen Show goes where the news leads, especially when those stories intersect with faith, culture, politics, and a biblical worldview. Several recent stories provide an important reminder that media bias isn't limited to how a story is reported. Sometimes the more consequential decision is whether to report it at all.

When Attacks on Christians Barely Make the News

Pastor Martin Sedra and his wife, Millicent, recently experienced something no family should have to endure.

Sedra pastors Echo Church in Sydney, Australia, and has publicly spoken about Christianity, Islam, abortion, marriage, and other controversial cultural issues. According to video and the Sedras' account discussed on the show, masked protesters arrived outside their home shortly after the couple welcomed their first child. The group allegedly cut power to the house, threatened the family, and said they would return.

Whatever someone's political or religious disagreements with Sedra, threatening a family at its home crosses a line that should be obvious.

Yet the incident received little attention from major news organizations at the time it was discussed on the show.

That story comes alongside another troubling development: a series of fires involving churches.

The former St. Agnes Church in Toledo, Ohio, burned over the weekend. Another Toledo church, St. Anthony's, had suffered a fire only weeks earlier. Other recent church fires discussed on the program included Friendship Baptist Church in Cleveland, St. Simon Church in New Brunswick, Canada, and Buckingham Presbyterian Church in the United Kingdom. Importantly, the causes of these individual fires should not be assumed before investigators determine them.

But the broader problem of hostility toward churches is documented. The Family Research Council reported hundreds of hostile incidents against churches in 2024, including dozens categorized as arson or attempted arson.

That deserves attention.

Christians should resist the temptation to declare every church fire an act of religious persecution without evidence. At the same time, repeated attacks against Christian institutions should not become background noise simply because they do not fit the cultural narrative preferred by a newsroom.

Media bias isn't only found in misleading words. It can also be found in the stories that never receive enough attention for Americans to ask questions about them.

The same standard should apply regardless of the victims. An attack on a church should matter. An attack on a synagogue should matter. An attack on a mosque should matter. Threatening a Christian family should matter just as an attack against people because of their sexuality should matter.

Consistency is the test.

Who Decides What Counts as News?

A shooting outside a gay bar in Tucson raises precisely that question.

According to the account discussed on the program, two men were killed outside Venture-N by a gunman who later killed himself. Police reportedly found a note identifying additional LGBTQ businesses, raising concerns that the victims had been deliberately targeted. The show also highlighted reporting that the shooter was born in Gambia and was described by a relative as a practicing Muslim.

There is no justification for murdering innocent people because of their sexuality. None.

But there is also no justification for minimizing relevant facts about an attack because those facts complicate a preferred political narrative.

This is where consistency becomes essential. If the religious beliefs of a professing Christian attacker would become part of national coverage, the same journalistic curiosity should exist when an attacker comes from another religious background.

The point isn't to blame millions of peaceful Muslims for one man's actions. It is to report relevant facts without deciding beforehand which ones the audience is allowed to consider.

That principle also applies inside conservative media.

The departure of longtime Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo has generated questions after reports that she disagreed with a programming decision concerning coverage of a presidential address. According to the reports discussed on the show, Bartiromo wanted to cover President Trump's remarks and planned additional discussion afterward. Weeks later, she departed the network, which characterized the move as a business decision. The precise internal circumstances remain disputed and should be described accordingly.

But the episode illustrates a larger point.

A journalist's responsibility is not to protect viewers from stories executives consider inconvenient. It is to pursue information, establish facts, provide context, and allow audiences to evaluate what happened.

A news organization loses something fundamental when protecting a narrative becomes more important than pursuing a story.

That standard shouldn't change depending on whether the network is CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or anyone else.

It is also why independent outlets matter. They cannot guarantee perfect journalism, and they should be held accountable like everyone else. But a decentralized media environment makes it considerably harder for a handful of executives to determine the boundaries of public discussion.

Parents Cannot Outsource Discernment

Media institutions aren't the only institutions Americans should scrutinize.

Parents should be asking similar questions about schools.

A video discussed on the program featured a kindergarten teacher describing an exercise in which young children were asked whether they wished they had been born another gender. Students who raised their hands were then invited to choose different names. The teacher subsequently posted that she had been fired and lost her teaching license.

Whatever debates adults want to have about gender, five-year-olds should not become instruments for an adult's ideological project.

Parents possess a responsibility that cannot simply be transferred to teachers, administrators, politicians, or government agencies.

That becomes particularly important as politicians increasingly speak about children collectively. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, for example, has argued for policies based on imagining that “all of our kids were all of our kids,” connecting that idea to public education, health care, and child care. The program contrasted that philosophy with the conviction that parents retain the primary responsibility for raising and forming their children.

Schools certainly have an important role. Good teachers deserve gratitude and respect. But education never happens in a worldview vacuum. Someone is always teaching children what is true, what is good, what a human being is, and where authority ultimately resides.

For Christians, those questions cannot be surrendered to the state.

Parents can delegate instruction, but they cannot delegate their God-given responsibility to know what their children are being taught and who is shaping their worldview.

That principle connects these seemingly unrelated headlines.

News organizations shape what adults believe is important. Schools help shape what children believe is true. Politicians attempt to shape what citizens believe government should provide. Corporations increasingly communicate their own moral and cultural priorities.

In each case, Christians need discernment.

The answer is not paranoia, and it isn't assuming every institution is corrupt. It is paying attention. Ask what is being taught. Examine what is being omitted. Compare claims against the evidence. And above all, measure cultural messages against Scripture rather than allowing the culture to determine how Scripture should be understood.

That is increasingly necessary in an age when the most revealing part of a story may be the part someone decided wasn't worth telling.

Watch The Daniel Cohen Show on Real Life Network for news and commentary connecting the headlines to the good news through a biblical worldview.