Posted on 12/07/2002 11:06:44 PM PST by Simi Valley Tom
Faith in Jesus Christ Will Be the Focus of New Journalism Award, Presented at Annual Faith and Values Awards Gala in Hollywood March 18
A new journalism award will grace the Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry next year in March, sponsored by the Christian Film & Television Commission™ ministry, a Christian advocacy group based in Hollywood.
The Grace Award in Broadcast Journalism will be awarded each year to the TV newscaster in the secular media who best shows, through accurate journalistic reporting on a true story, how, despite impossible human circumstances, God opened the hearts of people to the grace and love of Jesus Christ and allowed them to triumph over those conditions.
Sponsoring the Grace Award in Broadcast Journalism is philanthropist Morgan H. Grace, Jr., of Southampton, NY and Palm Beach, FL.
Mr. Grace also sponsors the Annual Grace Awards for Most Inspirational Acting in Movies and Television, which are also presented every year at the Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry.
"We are very pleased that our friend, Morgan Grace, has decided to extend his support for high standards in the entertainment industry to developing high standards for the national news media," said Dr. Ted Baehr, founder and chairman of Christian Film & Television Commission™ (CFTVC).
CFTVC's Awards Gala honors the Best Films for Families and the Best Films for Mature Audiences of the year, as well as the John Templeton Foundation Epiphany Prizes for Most Inspiring Movie and Television Program.
The movie and television awards are based on the pioneering letter-code system for analyzing audio-visual content developed by Dr. Baehr for CFTVC. CFTVC uses this criteria to evaluate the financial success of family-friendly movies and television programs, as well as movies and television programs with content that reflects traditional moral values and traditional Christian teachings, based on the Bible.
Dr. Baehr presents CFTVC's findings to the entertainment industry in his Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry, which is featured at the Awards Gala.
The goal of the Gala is to inform top industry executives and creative artists that family-friendly, moral and Christian movies and television programs can attract bigger audiences and make far more money on average than movies with graphic violence, foul language, explicit sex and nudity, and other content objectionable to parents of children and teenagers.
"As reported by the Los Angeles Times on April 14 and USA Today on June 18," Baehr said, "the number of family movies has greatly increased. This is because movies with very strong moral content in 2000 and 2001 averaged three times more at the box office than movies with strong sexual content and nudity, and nearly twice as much as movies with strong or graphic violence."
CFTVC's Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry also shows that movies with a strong or very strong Christian worldview also earn more money on average at the box office than other kinds of movies.
According to a recent study by Dr. Brad Bushman of Iowa State University, TV viewers who watch family programming have a higher rate of commercial recall or retention than viewers of violent and sexual material. Viewers who watch family programming have a 32 percent higher commercial retention rate than viewers of violent programming and a 46 percent higher retention rate than viewers of sexual programming. Also, brand recall among viewers of family programming after 24 hours was 53 percent higher than viewers of programming with violent content and 67 percent higher than viewers of programming with sexual content. Like CFTVC’s statistics on the financial success of movies, these TV ratings clearly show that family-friendly, moral programming also pays on TV.
Therefore, the more TV journalism presents good news, the more the viewers will remember the advertising sustaining the programs. Of course, the best news is the Good News about the grace and love of Jesus Christ, who wants to rescue people where they are.
Each entry for the Grace Award in Broadcast Journalism must include a $100 entry fee and a VHS tape of the particular story in question. Entries and entry fees are due by Dec. 31 each year. They should be sent to:
Christian Film & Television Commission™ 2510-G Las Posas Road, #502 Camarillo, CA 93010
For more information on the Grace Award in Broadcast Journalism, call Tom Snyder or Ted Baehr at (805) 383-2000, or write an email to movieguide@compuserve.com.
© baehr, 2002
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