3AW's top-rating Neil Mitchell – casual kitchen-and-garden anti-Christian bigot

On this morning's 'Sunrise' programme on Channel Seven, Neil Mitchell, whose head must hardly fit these days in the expanding 3AW studio, said during a 'discussion' with some media colleagues:

Hang on! Did you use morality and the Church together?'

This was in reply to one of his colleagues who said that it was left to the [Christian] churches to show the way in morality. Nobody else could be depended upon.

Later when the subject of culture and rugby came up he quipped uproariously:

'You're talking about morality and the Church, you're talking about culture and rugby...none of them sit together!'

Now if anyone wanted an example to hold out to young people of crass, crude, unthinking, uncomplicated bigotry, then this would be it. And this is not the first time by a long shot that Mitchell has said this sort of thing. Ask any Catholic who bothers to listen to his program.

You see, for Mitchell the Church is corrupt from top to bottom. There's no other way to interpret the above comments. So, we Catholics who go to Mass, support a devoted clergy, follow the teaching of the Church, and so on, we are supporters of a corrupt institution – if we can escape Mitchell's judgment that we ourselves are corrupt, and that seems hardly likely in the context.

It would surprise Mitchell, no doubt, to learn that other than being Catholics we are mostly ordinary Australians with ordinary families who do the same ordinary things as other Australians.

There is so much to be said about Mitchell and his lazy bigoted mind, and we might have a further look at it in the future, but at this point to demonstrate how crude his bigotry is, just replace the word 'Church' with the word 'Jews' and see what you get.

Hang on! Did you use 'morality' and 'the Jews' together? 'You're talking about morality and 'the Jews'...none of them sit together!'

Quite rightly there would be outrage in the community if he said these things. Why does Mitchell get away with his offhand anti-Christian bigotry? He gets away with it because it is a media accepted bigotry. Anti-Christian bigotry is a sort of a passport in the media. It's the stripes you earn to go further.

I challenge Neil Mitchell to make his case that the Church is corrupt from top to bottom. In The Telecard Affair:Diary of a Media Lynching, I claimed that the media is 'the sharpest corrupting influence in our social and political life'. I have written two books to back up my claim. I challenge Mitchell to provide the same sort of evidence and argument to justify his claim. I am quite happy to give him copies of my books to help him to understand what sort of evidence and argument is required for those who are ready to judge the case with decency and an open mind.