A few days ago I wrote about an article I'd read at ABC News online about the new movie Wicker Man. My interest was not so much in the movie as in the sympathetic treatment the author gave witches and Wicca. This morning, in my Google News inbox, I found a link to another ABC News Story: A Primer on Paganism: Witch Movie Opens This Weekend, Know Before You Go by Hari Sreenivasan.

The whole point of the article seems to be to set people straight on any misconceptions they may have about Pagans and Wiccans - perhaps in light of what I've already figured out is the conclusion of the film. This strikes me as remarkably responsible of ABC and unprecedented in my experience. I've never seen the mainstream media go out of its way to report accurately about Wicca, much less devote an entire article to it. What's going on over there at ABC? Not that I'm complaining!

A few things that particularly caught my attention were Sreenivasan's accurate definition of pagan, her explanation of Wicca as a particular faith among many, and the effort to discuss the historical role and persecution of witches. This is nothing that can't be found in any intro to witchcraft book, but I've rarely seen a news article contain this much factual and accurate information about witchcraft. In fact, Sreenivasan wrote something I hadn't read anywhere before:

Ever wonder why all the caricatures of witches include long noses, ears and chins? Susan said it is something that naturally happens when you reach very very old ages - a buildup of extra cartilage - so these women in the Middle Ages who might have lived to be 90 or 100 were more than anomalies, considering how short the life expectancy was for people of that era. Those who didn't understand how the witches were healing themselves, feared them.

Susan Weed is a high priestess in the Dianic tradition who lives near Woodstock, New York. Sreenivasan interviewed her for this article and visited Weed's home.

Another thing that struck me about Sreenivasan's writing is her use of the word witch throughout the story. She never tries to employ euphemisms or avoid this word that generally carries such a negative connotation in mainstream American culture.

It's a nice article and worth a quick read.

Hari Sreenivasan's article and the earlier one by Buck Wolf are remarkable to me mainly for the reason that they actually happened. At ABC News no less. One of the reasons why the blogosphere has become the juggernaut that it has is that so many people were tired of the mainstream news media reporting factually incorrect stories with no research to back them up. And witches almost always get a bad rap in the press. It is sad, though, when the most significant thing you take away from a piece of writing was amazement that it wasn't ignorant bigotry.

I am a bit curious, still, as to why ABC is choosing to feature such Wicca-friendly journalism. I'm trying not to succumb to the cynical view that they're merely fending off a law suit or have some other agenda. But the appearance of these articles is enough to make me take a closer look at ABC. Not a particular fan of network television, I may just have to consider the possibility that ABC is the one to witch!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:25 AM