by Wild_Thing 24 Replies latest jw friends
What is so frustrating is that the world doesn't know who any of these small groups are until a huge tragedy happens, like in the case of the Waco Davidians or the Applewhite group (can't remember their name). I hate that the tragedy has to be on such a large scale before the world pays attention.
I think the alarming number of hidden abuse cases, and the alarming way they instruct their members to handle abuse is a tragedy worthy of attention.
The world doesn't agree.
jwundubbed: Unable to find statistics on the JW religion that don't come from the JW.
Does this count??
Pew Research: A Closer Look at Jehovah's Witnesses Living in the US
@darkspilver,
That definitely helps. Any statistics not provided by the JW is helpful. But it doesn't tell us the accuracy of their worldwide counts. Third party research is what I was trying to find. I didn't look horribly hard. But it was much easier to find that information for the Catholics than for the JWs.
here in the UK mr & mrs joe public couldnt give a sh*t about jw's---so probably wouldnt read any news articles about them
so that leaves the jw's----who wouldnt read such apostate lies
and us ex jw's. so a readership of a few hundred at most.
jwundubbed: Any statistics not provided by the JW is helpful
You mean non-Catholics turn up at Catholic churchs and count the attendance??
I'd presume even many of the apparently 'independent' statistics have their roots in the Catholics own provided numbers.
I understood that Pew Research is independent, and they've covered the JWs fairly comprehensively in a number of breakdowns including by age, ethnicity, education, family income etc etc
But the problem is how members are counted - is it purely by turning up for a service? or just saying they believe in it?
For us JW abuse is real and affects us all on a very personal level. For us the organisation was once our whole world and we were led to believe that they were an influential and important group. This is not true they are a small fringe religion with little influence outside their membership and as a result the mainstream media needs more to make JWs newsworthy. By sharing stories and highlighting abuses we do bring the stories to the attention of people who might otherwise never look for these on their own.
They did the Dateline episode...and huge settlements made the nightly news. But since then? Crickets.
Even something like Dateline is not really enough. It relies on followers on a particular show. This would only have any impact if it was picked up by something like the AP. If it was, then it would be propagated by multiple outlets.
Unfortunately, JWs are such an uninteresting and small group that the reality is the nobody cares about them.
@London 11,
It almost makes me wonder if Watchtower has people of influence in some of these news organizations.
Exactly what I've been thinking....
But once I said this same thing on here and was told to be careful about that saying that.
Everything that has been done in the dark it starting to come out to light...so that's why I wonder why mainstream doesn't pick it up...
To me it's about warning people...yes, JW's may be a small religion compared, but 8 million people do count and exist...To me this would be the best time, because so many are coming out or being exposed...
What most people know about JW's is no holidays and no blood. Again, I think it's a great story...because it's more that goes on in the org. besides pedophiles (biggest deal)...again, it may not start out to be a big story but the more the org. is unraveled, it will at least be good reading...most people I know, know at least one witness...
How many children minds will be messed up because it's not newsworthy enough...
Sad....
Tor
JWs influence the frequency and intensity of news media coverage? If only! These are small fish in a novelty-news hungry media with dubious “power” to influence editorial decisions.
Very very few smaller scale stories receive sustained coverage. Today’s fresh news is tomorrow’s food wrapping, unless on the scale of Trump and co.
To suspect a kind of “conspiracy” of silence or fitful coverage is to enter a world where the individual’s need to have certain issues publicised loses a sense of reality about how news is manufactured then quickly forgotten.
If I had my way JW policies and practices in responding to child sexual abuse would achieve widespread and in-depth news media coverage. So I am not at odds with the healthy intent of the OP.
Each person with a heart hopes their issues will gain coverage. The reality of the news media, though, is not driven by earnest intent but simple business and readership and viewership interests.
But the problem is how members are counted - is it purely by turning up for a service? or just saying they believe in it? - darkspilver
All statistics have this problem. All studies have this problem. How did you come by the information and what was the criteria for the information. To be honest, that is a bigger problem than I am willing to solve. My only attempt was to find any information from the source itself and from a third, unaffiliated party. Providing that information doesn't do anything... other than to show people how popular Catholicism is in reality and in the minds of the Catholic organization versus how popular the Jehovah's Witness cult is in reality and in the minds of the JW org.
No matter how you look at it... the Billions of Catholics makes them a part of the mainstream world stage and the few million JWs makes them irrelevant. If you want mainstream media to pay attention... and you don't have the numbers to be a part of the world, then you have to do something that puts the JWs in the forefront of social media. Even though the JWs have a website and a broadcast, I don't think they nor exJWs have any idea how much YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook impact the mainstream media these days.
