A few of Apostle of Atheism's salient findings:

* Newsweek magazine ran articles by atheists or articles about atheism in more than half of its issues, 25 out of 49.

* ABC, NBC and CBS ran a total of 51 stories on atheism, an average of one network television story per week.

* 80 percent of feature stories about atheism or atheists had a positive tone, and 20 percent were neutral. None of the stories was negative.

* The media frequently invited atheists to critique Christianity, but never any other religion, suggesting a specific anti-Christian bias.

Journalists are expected to write critically, casting a skeptical eye on any subject they choose to address. Atheism, however, received a free ride in 2007. The media refused to hold atheists to the same level of skepticism routinely directed at religious believers.

Until last week CMI was planning to accompany Apostles of Atheism with a second installment of last year's Eye on Culture report, The Easter "Hit" Parade. Challenges to religious faith usually crop up during the Lenten/Passover season, and last year the media delivered a series of attacks on every major tenet of Christian faith from the existence of God to the resurrection of Christ to the inspiration of Scripture.

In 2008, thankfully, we've seen no such broad-based assault on faith, so we decided to write an article trumpeting the good news. Just as we were speculating that CMI had influenced the media to improve its treatment of religion, however, we found out about two particularly offensive shows broadcast during Holy Week. On the news media side, ABC's Nightline ran a very slanted, demeaning segment about Bible-believing evolution critics who "invade" natural history museums. Nightline left no stone unturned in its effort to make these men, who lead tours primarily for home-schooled students, look like duplicitous fools. On the entertainment side, NBC's Law & Order served up an attack on Christians so vile that we treat it separately below.

Maybe we'll have better news to report next year.