Taking on The Pledge: Author Examines Press reaction to Newdow

Ron Bishop recently published a book that examines how the mainstream press dismisses eccentric people such as Michael Newdow, whose quest to remove the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Taking on the Pledge” is a critique on how the mainstream press operates, using Newdow as an example, Bishop told The Community News.
In the first chapter of his book, Bishop compares the media’s treatment of Newdow with the way Vietnam and Iraq war protesters were treated.

Bishop said in his book that journalists portrayed Newdow as an “erratic outsider who had the audacity to challenge one of this nation’s most revered rituals in a time of national crisis.”

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“He has a very eclectic personality. He’s very interesting and articulate,” Bishop said. “What happens with the mainstream press is when they find somebody like Newdow, they marginalize him. What’s so interesting about his story is he managed to push back and get on the agenda.”


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“He does feel – and I almost share his concerns about this – that these expressions of religion in public life are beyond what the Constitutional framers envisioned,” Bishop said. “The (Founding Fathers) were deists at best, not particularly religious people who believed God and state were separate. He was just trying to clarify those boundaries a little bit.”