Religious broadcasters felt left out of last week's state of the video marketplace hearing.

The hearing, in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, featured witnesses representing commercial broadcasters, cable/broadband operators and over-the-top video providers.

In an online roundup for its members, National Religious Broadcasters pointed out that while it sent a letter to the committee in advance of the hearing outlining its issues and had its policy team in the hearing room, no mention was made of religious broadcasting.

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NRB was also not pleased that the hearing's broadcast carriage issue was strictly confined to retransmission consent rather than the must-carry option that most religious broadcasters elect.

One issue the hearing did deal with was children's programming. Leaving religious broadcasters out of that discussion was a missed opportunity, the association suggested. 

“While broadcasters have historically been a trusted source for children’s programming, digital streaming services are not bound to the same standards as traditional formats and open the door for unsuitable content for children,” NRB pointed out in its online hearing takeaway. “Religious broadcasters are important to this aspect of the video marketplace discussion because of their important role in delivering wholesome, family-friendly content.”

According to various reports, Dan Darling, senior VP for communications for the National Religious Broadcasters, has been fired after comments he made supporting vaccines against COVID-19.

Darling made the comments on MSNBC's Morning Joe and in a USA Today op ed titled: "Why as a Christian and an American I got the COVID Vaccine."

Religionnews.com reported that following the remarks, which apparently violated NRB policy about remaining neutral on vaccines, Darling was given the choice of publicly stating he had been insubordinate or leaving, and chose the latter.

The Evangelical community is divided over the vaccine, with White evangelicals having a high refusal rate, according to U.S. News and World Report, while some NRB members actively support the vaccine, NRB itself points out.

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For example, Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and son of iconic religious broadcaster Billy Graham, has, according to NRB, "said that he thanked God for the doctors and researchers who were involved in developing these vaccines and for the resources that made it possible," and has said that "he hoped the American people would use these vaccines."

Darling had said in the USA Today piece that he believed in getting the vaccine because "I don't want to see anyone else die of COVID," citing "an uncle, a beloved church member, and our piano teacher," all of whom had succumbed to the virus.

On Aug. 18 in a Morning Joe segment on the Darling op ed, tied to Pope Francis encouraging the faithful to get vaccinated as an "act of love," Darling said the idea of loving your neighbor translates to not spreading the virus. 

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He said he was not shaming those who don't get the vaccine and understood it was a big decision, but encouraged folks to talk to their doctor.

An NRB spokesperson had not returned an e-mail request for comment Saturday morning (Aug. 28) and Darling was unreachable at press time.

Attorney General William Barr used a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Wednesday (Feb. 26) to take aim at progressive Democrats and the "massively consolidated" media, or, put another way, the President's favorite twitter targets. 

Barr took his NRB convention audience in Nashville on something of a combination political philosophy/ecclesiastical history tour, touching on St. Augustine, Tocqueville, Rousseau and John Adams. 

But his ultimate destination was the present day, where he blamed the current "passionate" political divisions on conflict between liberal democracy, which he described as limited government and personal liberty, and totalitarian democracy, which he said "seeks to submerge the individual in a collectivist agenda" and "subverts individual freedom in favor of elite conceptions about what best serves the collective," and which he said today's progressive Democrats are turning into. 

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He called it a form of messianic democracy that substitutes politics for religion and requires an all-knowing elite to guide the masses. He said the new "progressives" have become increasingly "militant and totalitarian" with a socialist, collectivist agenda. 

Barr said the goal of those progressives and their "totalitarianism beneath a veneer of democratic choice" is to "convert all of us into 25 year-olds living in the government’s basement, focusing our energies on obtaining a larger allowance rather than getting a job and moving out." 

And what has been one of the eroded bulwarks against this "slide toward despotism?" The mainstream media. 

Barr said a free and diverse press provided a form of decentralization of power, but now that the "corporate--or mainstream--media press is massively consolidated" and "remarkably monolithic" in viewpoint," while journalists increasingly see themselves as agents of change rather than reporters of fact, the media has the power to mobilize public opinion in a particular direction, with those mobilized becoming more powerful with the press as its ally.

"This is not a positive cycle, and I think it is fair to say that it puts the press’ role as a breakwater for the tyranny of the majority in jeopardy," said Barr. 

President Trump's argument has been that Democrats, progressive and otherwise, have mobilized the mainstream media as their ally in trying to bring him down. 

But Barr had some preaching for the choir as well, finding some hope in the media folks he was addressing.

"The key to restoring the press in that vital role is to cultivate a greater diversity of voices in the media," he said. "That is where you come in. You are one of the last holdouts in the consolidation of organs and viewpoints of the press. It is, therefore, essential that you continue your work and continue to supply the people with diverse, divergent perspectives on the news of the day. And in this secular age, it is especially vital that your religious perspective is voiced."