I have always found it interesting when major news organizations conduct a public-relations blitz — primarily with messages to other journalists — promoting one of their own news reports.
Obviously, the message to other journalists is this: We deserve praise for doing this story. The implied message is usually: We were brave to do this story. Now, all you other newsroom folks should follow our courageous example and cover this story, too.
In this case, we are talking about an NBC News press release with this dramatic double-decker headline:
NBC NEWS: SATANIC PANIC IS MAKING A COMEBACK, FUELED BY QANON BELIEVERS AND GOP INFLUENCERS
Baseless Accusations Are Branding People As Satanist Pedophiles At The Speed Of The Internet — Just Ask A GOP Prosecutor Who Recently Lost Re-Election.
There are several levels to This. Big. Story.
(1) There is a totally valid story about Internet-based attacks against a progressive Republican — David Leavitt, the prosecuting attorney for Utah County — attempting to smear him with wild stories about Satanic, cannibalistic attacks on children. Leavitt is active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the younger brother of a former Utah governor, Mike Leavitt.
(2) There is a valid, and by now very familiar, story about QAnon, politicians, pedophiles, cannibalism, pizza and, of course, the work of Satan in one form of another (hold that thought). If you have followed GetReligion, you know that we think the world of QAnon conspiracy theories is important and worthy of tight, fact-based coverage.
(3) There are some, repeat “some,” Republicans on the right fringe who now rush to connect Satanic worship to all kinds of trends in the free-for-all that is modern American culture. These politicos have been known to blur the line between organized, public Satanic religious groups and the secret world (it’s hard to know the size of this phenomenon) of people attempting to practice dark arts of various kinds.
(4) There are many conservative, and very mainstream, religious believers who openly state their beliefs that incarnate evil — as in the biblical Satan — is at work, on one level or another, in activities including child abuse, domestic violence, terrorism, warfare, etc. Yes, some believe that using permanent forms of gender-transition surgery and puberty blockers on children fall into this category.
It’s important to note, however, that someone like Pope Francis saying that he sees Satanic forces at work in our world is not the same thing as people making accusations against, for example, the specific and official Church of Satan. Yes, Pope Francis has probably used more Satan-based language than any pope in several generations, including on some issues linked to the Sexual Revolution.
This NBC News report takes the important story at level (1) and links it to level (2) — which is valid. The problem, from my journalistic point of view, is that NBC News then attempts to take some poll-based information about questions at level (3) and even (4) and then blend that material with (2) Qanon and the (1) attacks on someone like Leavitt, arguing that belief in the reality of incarnate evil (a mainstream Christian belief, as in this Catholic Catechism reference) is creating a wider trend that threatens American democracy, or words to that effect.
Thus, we have this NBC thesis statement that connects all four levels that I have mentioned:
Leavitt’s experience is one of a spate of recent examples in which individuals have been targeted with accusations of Satanism or so-called ritualistic abuse, marking what some see as a modern day version of the moral panic of the 1980s, when hysteria and hypervigilance over protecting children led to false allegations, wrongful imprisonments, decimated communities and wasted resources to the neglect of actual cases of abuse.
While the current obsession with Satan was boosted in part by the QAnon community, partisan media and conservative politicians have been instrumental in spreading newfound fears over the so-called ritualistic abuse of children that the devil supposedly inspires, sometimes weaving the allegations together with other culture war issues such as LGBTQ rights.
Editors at NBC News should ponder, for example, what Pope Francis and other mainstream religious leaders in a wide variety of traditions would say about this language — “ritualistic abuse of children that the devil supposedly inspires.”
For starters, the word “supposedly” leaps straight into theological, not political, debate.
Here is an example of the poll-based material in which it is hard to tell if 20-33% of Americans — that seems to be the allegation — are veering into QAnon territory. The starting point, naturally, is the Satanic abuse stories of an earlier era:
“This was a widespread belief back in the ʼ80s,” said Joseph Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami, who studies conspiracy theories. “And when the satanic panic disappeared, it just disappeared. It wasn’t like there was a reckoning.”
Uscinski’s work includes nationwide polls to measure belief in particular conspiracy theories. A survey of 2,000 U.S. residents conducted in June by Uscinksi and a colleague through the University of Miami revealed fears over satanic rituals and child sexual abuse are pervasive.
One-third of respondents agreed with the statement, “members of Satanic cults secretly abuse thousands of children every year.” One quarter agreed that “Satanic ritual sex abuse is widespread in this country,” and 21% agreed that “numerous preschools and public schools secretly engage in Satanic practices.”
In other words, if one fears that there is hidden, unreported sexual abuse of children in some schools and that Satan is somehow involved in the sexual abuse of children, then we can go from level (4) beliefs to ugly level (1) political activity in a flash.
To see that equation at work once again, with an emphasis on level (4) religious belief, see this final passage from the long, long NBC News feature.
Oh, it’s also important to grasp the degree to which, for many journalists and apparently some researchers, Twitter represents the “real” America.
Discussion about satanism and satanic abuse has increased in recent years, according to data provided to NBC News by Zignal Labs, which analyzes social media conversations. From 2007 to 2014, mentions of satanism on Twitter increased steadily year over year until 2016, when mentions spiked 37%, during a presidential election and at the height of “pizzagate,” an online conspiracy theory rooted in the false belief that a ritualistic child sex ring was run out of a Washington pizza parlor.
The trend continued until it peaked in 2020, during the next presidential election and at the height of QAnon’s popularity. It remains elevated, according to Zignal Labs data.
The rise in conversation surely has much to do with the kind of people fixated on the devil. …
The daily invocations of Satan by the biggest players in conservative politics and media are too numerous to catalog in full.
The problem, of course, is the threat posed by all of those dangerous religious believers who are “the kind of people” who are “fixated on the devil.” That may be people on Twitter or people in pulpits and pews who simply take the Bible at its word.
Yes, QAnon believers allege all kinds of wild things about Satan’s work in American politics. This is not the same thing as the scores of mainstream believers — think Pope Francis, again — who will testify that they see the work of the Devil in some mind, body and spirit warping trends in modern life.
The big journalism question, of course, is whether valid story (1) in Utah, and QAnon in general, can be directly tied, via Twitter and a rather small poll sample, to the rather common beliefs of people seen in story (4).
Just saying. And journalists — Hey, let’s be careful out there.
FIRST IMAGE: A Florence Baptisry mural, created c.1260 by Coppo di Marcovaldo, featured with this BBC report: “The changing faces of Satan.”