The Newsweek headline — “Penthouse Gets Pious” — grabbed me. But the story doesn’t quite deliver. In it, business reporter Jennifer Ordonez’s story argues that internet porn is forcing adult magazines to diversify. Here’s how the story begins:
Christian dating web site BigChurch.com’s motto is “Bringing people together in love and faith.” A pointed quote from the Old Testament (“A man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Gen. 2:24) precedes the site’s Bible-verse search library. Further testimonial from a fresh-faced woman leaves little doubt as to the site’s higher purpose: “I feel like my prayers of finding a respectable man have been answered! Thanks BigChurch!!”
So it may surprise users that BigChurch.com has a decidedly promiscuous corporate parent: Penthouse Media Group Inc.
But that’s it. The article very dryly discusses how Penthouse acquired a social-network company with a broad reach. Its subsidiaries range from BigChurch.com to Bondage.com.
I know it’s the business section and all, but perhaps we could get a bit more? Some quotes from Penthouse execs talking about how great it is to run a Christian dating web site? Some quotes from Christians who think it’s not so great? Quotes from economists putting the business move in context? When the assignment editor gods give you a story that combines religion and pornography, you have to do more.
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Comments (5) |
May 17, 2008, at 1:20 pm
Mollie, as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, you can find someone to say that this is a terrible idea and someone from Penthouse to say it’s wonderful. That’s not news and not the kind of reporting I care about. It is, to me, typical MSM reporting you’re asking for. The interesting questions are whether or not many Christians will boycott the site because of the corporate parent and to what extent will the site and how it’s advertised change under Penthouse.
May 17, 2008, at 1:35 pm
Jerry ponders…
If the suits in charge have any sense they’ll leave it alone and let it flourish. To properly cold-blooded business types Christian dating is a niche and skin-and-grin is a niche, not to be conflated.
May 17, 2008, at 8:26 pm
Gotta agree with Jerry/Dave… it’s a loud silence, but perhaps preferable to the MSM hitting speed-dial and getting an easy and predictable soundbite from James Dobson et al - much as I’d likely appreciate reading and identifying with their indignation. Business is about the bottom line, and if securing a niche market benefits a company, it’s strictly (and cynically) a business decision.
No one expects Penthouse to act as some kind of paragon of moral virtue. If they’d turned down such an acquisition opportunity because it would offend others and violate “company ethics”, now that indeed would be news.
It would be interesting to hear about efforts from church and parachurch organizations to forewarn people, and how much success they have. But I suspect that would be covered more at the local and church-based media levels rather than the MSM.
May 18, 2008, at 12:30 pm
Well, Zondervan customers are mostly OK with Murdoch, although there was this in the Christian Post a while back:
I blogged some background on this here.
May 19, 2008, at 12:16 pm
Until a major competitor tries to exploit the fact that Penthouse’s parent owns BigChurch.com, the MSM is unlikely to do much reporting on it. The bigger story here, in my opinion, is the fact that the parent company is dropping “Penthouse” from its name.
Bartholomew’s comparison to Murdoch’s company owning Zondervan is spot-on. Can a subsidiary or business unit that caters to Christians thrive and remain true to its target customers when it is part of a conglomerate that includes porn sites and porn channels? I doubt that the MSM will report on this, but maybe some Christian pubs will…assuming, of course, that those pubs are relatively independent.