Speaking at the “National Religious Broadcasters” (NRB) 75th annual convention, President Jerry A. Johnson said that it was time for the NRB to return to it’s roots.
Founded in the 1940s, the Christian broadcasters had gathered in Chicago, at Moody Church, to fight for their seat at the table, when the national radio networks had adopted regulations that relegated evangelical communicators to independent stations with a limited ability to reach their audience. Thus was born, the NRB.
‘The new media today is digital. It’s social media. It’s Facebook. It’s Twitter. It’s Google. It’s YouTube.’” Johnson said.
He told the attendees that the NRB campaign of the 1940s, “Was not a political question. It was a Gospel question. It was a freedom of religion question. It was a freedom of speech question. It was a First Amendment question.”
“Internet Freedom Watch” is the NRB’s effort to address the issue of discrimination against Christian and conservative content on the internet. The initiative was unveiled at a December news conference in Washington, D.C., where the NRB called attention to censorship by tech companies such as Twitter, Google, Facebook and Apple.
Twitter recently “locked out” thousands of conservative’s accounts, saying that it was an effort to reduce “bots” on their platform. One might ask Twitter, are there no “bots” who speak liberal, to lock down?
It has also sought to tamp down some forms of speech that it deems as ‘abusive’ on the service. In November, it removed its blue check marks — which it gives out to verify users’ identities.
Cernovich, a pro-Trump media figure, is suing the platform Medium after its recent banning of him and others conservatives
Johnson told the Christian communicators, “This isn’t a pleasure cruise, we’re running a battleship here.” He went on to ask & encourage them to join with the NRB in the initiative to fight for the first amendment.
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