It may only be seven sentences long, but I was happy to see this Associated Press report briefly explaining that U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have formally rejected the Obama administration’s proposed modifications to the Health and Human Services rule requiring employers to provide health insurance that covers free contraception, abortion drugs and sterilization:

The bishops said in a statement Tuesday to Health and Human Services that the prospective new rules don’t do enough to protect religious liberty.

The mandate requires employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control for workers. The plan sparked protests from faith leaders because it included most religious nonprofits such as hospitals and colleges.

President Barack Obama offered a compromise. He said insurers would bear the cost of the birth control instead of religious employers. However, the bishops argue that the compromise still makes their insurance plans a conduit for contraceptives.

The Associated Press links to the bishops’ comments, helpfully. I read them, although sleep deprived, I didn’t see anything suggesting the modification goes in the right direction but not far enough. It seemed to me that the bishops were saying that they do nothing at all to allay the moral concerns they have with the mandate. It does seem like an important distinction to me.

It’s also interesting to see how different news outlets covered the same formal objection. Kaiser Health News ran the headline and lede to four stories, including the Associated Press. The difference is really interesting. The AP headline, for what it’s worth, was “Bishops Reject Softened Birth Control Rule.” Here are the others:

National Journal: Bishops Make Birth Control Opposition Official (Again)
U.S. Catholic bishops made official their opposition to a health reform law rule requiring birth control coverage on Tuesday. The is “unjust and unlawful,” the bishops said in comments on the proposed regulation to Health and Human Services. The Obama administration’s “accommodation” for religious employers, requiring insurance companies to pay for the birth control coverage, doesn’t help, the bishops said (McCarthy, 5/15).

The Hill: Catholic Bishops Threaten Lawsuit Over Administration’s Birth Control Mandate
The Catholic Church’s U.S. hierarchy warned Tuesday that without quick action by Congress, it will sue the Obama administration for mandating that insurance plans provide birth control to women without a co-pay. “[F]orcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest,” lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a letter to federal regulators (Viebeck, 5/15).

Politico Pro: Bishops File Complaints On Contraception Rule
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday officially urged the Obama administration to change its policy of requiring many employers to provide insurance coverage of contraceptives. The bishops, in formal comments filed with HHS, reiterated many of their issues with the policy, saying it still requires employers, whether religious or not, to cover contraceptives. The bishops also say they’re uncomfortable with the government for the first time defining what is or is not a “religious employer” (Haberkorn, 5/15).

It will be interesting to see how much coverage this formal objection receives as well as how it’s played. And what do you think is the top line you would have gone with? Seems to me that “bishops threaten lawsuit” is both more accurate and newsier than “bishops say accommodation doesn’t do enough.”

Lawsuit image via Shutterstock.

We have lamented the Dallas Morning News’s near departure from religion coverage, but almost simultaneously, we’ve noticed the growth of another religion hub down the Texas road at the Houston Chronicle. Nearly every day, the editor of Houston Belief posts a religion news story on Believe It or Not, as she directs the rest of her team of bloggers in other religion-related coverage.

The lady behind the site is Kate Shellnutt, a religion reporter, blogger and web producer for the Chronicle whose work has earned honors from the Society for Features Journalism and Religion Newswriters Association. Before her time at the Chronicle, she studied religion and journalism at Washington and Lee University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Shellnutt says her academic background, focusing on religious communities and the Internet, plays into some of her philosophies about Houston Belief as well as her approach to engaging with religious groups on social media. Her thesis was on the digitization of the Bible, and she conducted a sociological study on religious rituals on the web, particularly online confession.

Naturally, you can also find Shellnutt on Twitter (personal & professional) and Facebook, or RSS feed. We asked her to weigh in on how she handles the mix of responsibilities, especially in a climate where the traditional religion reporter’s role could be changing.

You’re editing a mix of opinion and news for the religion site Houston Chronicle and writing news posts. How does religion coverage compare online to what goes in print? Is online a better outlet for the mix of coverage you do?

HoustonBelief.com offers more stories and represents a broader range of faiths on a day-to-day basis than our weekly print section, Belief. The site is newsier and has a social component, with about 20 blogs from community members and active commenters.

Much of what we do on the web feeds into the print section, which typically includes one of my best blog entries from the week, one of our readers’ best entries, a couple wire news stories and a local religion feature story.

Since you probably know exactly how many hits a story sees, how do you see analytics impacting the future of religion news? Do you see numbers that show religion news does well on the Chronicle’s site? Is there a temptation to cover stories just for hits?

I do pay attention to site traffic, and luckily, Houston readers care about religion. Big names like our own Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes always draw in clicks, as do stories about celebrities and faith, news-of-the-weird, the culture wars and certain religious groups, like atheists, Muslims and Mormons. Rather than cover a shallow story solely to draw up site traffic, I try to present thoughtful reporting or timely aggregations in ways that are particularly enticing for online readers—striking headlines, buzzy framing, strong images, etc.

As you assign and edit a mix of opinion, blogging and reporting, do you find yourself managing writers who could turn into sources? Do you think religion reporters at mainstream outlets will fill more of an editor/aggregator role?

The volunteer bloggers for Houston Belief come up with their own story ideas and write their own posts, and they do a great job. I’m here to provide general direction to the group about topics they might want to address or to help with the technical side of the site, but I don’t have editorial control. I try to avoid quoting Houston Belief contributors in my coverage, but I often ask them to recommend friends, leaders, organizations or events for stories. They’ve been very helpful connecting me with their religious communities.

Like many others covering religion for a newspaper, I split my time between this beat and several other tasks. Bringing in community bloggers and aggregating news stories when possible make my job more manageable. For religion reporters who work on the web (or are responsible for a web component), I think these strategies allow them to keep readers interested and updated in a time-efficient way.

The Dallas Morning News once had a robust religion section, which turned into a robust religion blog before the paper decided to focus energies elsewhere. Is there something about Texas that makes religion coverage tricky?

This change happened years before I lived in Texas, but I would assume the decision to scale back on religion coverage wasn’t because of the religious landscape in Texas, but the financial situation of the paper. Religion sections can be hard to maintain ad-wise because often the most interested parties—churches, non-profits, schools, etc.—aren’t dropping as much money on advertising as companies may spend in other sections. At the Chronicle, our Belief section in print has gotten a little smaller over the past few years, but HoustonBelief.com is getting more traffic than ever.

Several journalists seemed to resonate with Steve Buttry’s post “Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon…” Do you think religion reporters could become a bit more open to new media? How would you recommend they start harnessing newer technology better?

I think all reporters should be more open to new media. For religion reporters, it’s especially essential because (as I mentioned at the Religion Newswriters Association panel on social media) our sources and our readers are online. America’s most influential pastors, churches and religious leaders—for the most part—are blogging, tweeting, Facebook-ing and Instagram-ing. If we’re unplugged, we miss the chance to follow them, learn more about them and pick up on news stories.

If you’re hesitant or consider yourself technology-impaired, it’s fine to start by “lurking,” that is, tracking online activity without engaging just yet. Start following blogs and social media accounts relevant to your interests or your beat. Take note about what you like about the best ones (what info they shared, how often they posted, tone, etc.) and keep that in mind when you do decide to begin your own.

Where do you get your news about religion? Do you seek out sources for watching news different than religion reporters have in the past (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)?

I absolutely rely on the Internet for religion news and story ideas. I follow local and national religious leaders and organizations on Twitter and Facebook. Because they’re updated so often, I can get more news and context than I would from a press release, bulletin or even a quick conversation with a pastor.

Every day, I read popular personal blogs written by people of faith, blogs by religion reporters and articles in religion journal and publications, in addition to following wire stories. There’s a huge amount of information out there, and I’ve become a filter for sharing, retweeting or contextualizing what’s most relevant and interesting to the HoustonBelief.com audience.

Talk about burying the lede.

The mainstream press has been on a tear ever since President Barack Obama announced that his liberal Christian faith had inspired him to change his beliefs on the definition of marriage. One of the most common stories, produced by news outlet after news outlet, has focused on the ways that this doctrinal issue has divided various groups of believers.

This is a totally valid story to be covering, since believers on both sides of this issue are separated by centuries of doctrine and tradition. Here are the pivotal paragraphs in a typical New York Times report. However, when reading this passage, prepare yourself for the stealth blockbuster:

Mr. Obama’s declaration last week that he supports same-sex marriage prompted ministers around the country to take to their pulpits on Sunday and preach on the issue. But in the clash over homosexuality, the battle lines do not simply pit ministers against secular advocates for gay rights. Religion is on both sides in this conflict. The battle is actually church versus church, minister versus minister, and Scripture versus Scripture.

The dividing lines are often unpredictable. There are black churches that welcome openly gay couples, and white churches that do not. Some Presbyterian churches hire openly gay clergy members, while others will not. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin, but there are Catholic priests who secretly bless gay unions.

Did you catch that last reference? If, in fact, the Times has factual material about Catholic priests blessing same-sex relationships and unions then this is clearly the most important news angle in this piece. This is a major news story, buried deep in a related news report.

However, note that this claim (which I do not doubt, by the way) appears with absolutely no context, no attribution, no clue as to the source of this information. The Times does not even claim to be printing this information based on anonymous sources who requested protection from the Vatican. This is most strange.

I don’t know about you, but this passage immediately made me think of the following quotation:

Readers of The New York Times demand to know as much as possible about where we obtain our information and why it merits their trust. For that reason, we have long observed the principle of identifying our sources by name and title or, when that is not possible, explaining why we consider them authoritative, why they are speaking to us and why they have demanded confidentiality. Guidance on limiting the use of unidentified sources, and on informative description of those we do use, has appeared in several editions of our stylebook, including the current one, and in our Integrity Statement, dating from 1999.

This is, of course, the top of a report on The New York Times Company’s policy on the use of confidential sources. The key is that, when editors approve the use of a confidential source, reporters are still supposed to provide readers with as much information as possible in order to explain why they should trust this news story.

But wait, since we are dealing with a story that is about religion, linked to a “social values” issue on which all urbane, intelligent citizens would be in agreement, this may be one of those cases in which — under the Bill Keller revelation — that the Times no longer needs to play by conventional journalism rules about bias and fairness. That’s the ticket.

You remember the Keller doctrine, right? Here’s a reminder, with the recently retired editor discussing (video source here) whether his newspaper now openly plays an advocacy role on behalf of liberal policies and beliefs:

“We are liberal in the sense that we are open-minded, sort of tolerant, urban. Our wedding page includes — and did even before New York had a gay marriage law — included gay unions. So we’re liberal in that sense of the word, I guess. Socially liberal.”

Asked directly if the Times slants its coverage to favor “Democrats and liberals,” he added: “Aside from the liberal values, sort of social values thing that I talked about, no, I don’t think that it does.”

Now, there are other passages in this recent Times story that merit discussion. For example, pro-gay rights scholars compare scriptural references to sexuality with those describing slavery, yet the story offers no material describing traditional Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant viewpoints on that issue.

You know, the usual stuff. Once again, however, one must ask it — post Keller confession — the leaders of the Times believe they have any responsibility to accurately report the views of those who dissent from the newspaper’s approved religious doctrines.

Still, this story does appear to include a major innovation, one that appears to violate the newspaper’s policies. So let me ask: “What is the source of the information reflected in the following statement? I refer to this sentence: ‘The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin, but there are Catholic priests who secretly bless gay unions.’ “

Is this statement based on anonymous sources? If so, how can they best be described, so that readers have a chance to evaluate the validity of this claim?

Since it’s Nuns Day at GetReligion …

Seriously, one of my bookmarks for religion news is the New York Times’ Religion and Belief section. While browsing that section today, I came across a feature on “Sister Dolores,” the principal of an all-girls Catholic high school in Brooklyn, N.Y.

I clicked the link and found myself enjoying the story of this strict but trusted nun:

One of the first lessons a Fontbonne girl learns is that no good can come from crossing Sister Dolores.

Sister Dolores, the principal of Fontbonne Hall Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Brooklyn, once jumped out of her 2004 Toyota Corolla, confiscated a girl’s beer, emptied it into the gutter, explained that as a certified alcohol counselor she could have the girl arrested, then waited while the shellshocked child called her parents to report herself.

By the time the girls are seniors, they understand that when Sister Dolores says they are free to choose their own graduation dress, she means if it passes inspection.

Starting in early May, they bring them to the principal’s office and change in the bathroom.

“Let me see you,” Sister Dolores said to Alessandra Fodera, who will be attending Georgetown University in the fall. “Turn around.”

The dresses cannot be strapless. Straps must be at least one and a half inches wide. Hems are to be one and a half inches off the floor. Shoes must be white and can be high heels, but not too high.

Gowns will absolutely not be off-white, diamond white, or eggshell white. Only white-white.

After reading the entire story, though, I had a different perspective.

I found myself frustrated at the giant religion ghost that the writer allowed to haunt the 1,200-word profile.

Two crucial questions about Sister Dolores go unasked (and, of course, unanswered): What does she believe? And why does she do what she does? Here is a story about a Catholic nun and a Catholic high school that mostly ignores the Catholic part (except for a jab or two at the end … more on that later).

As I reviewed the online presentation closer, I noticed an “On Education” designation at the top. That explains a fair amount about the approach. Here we have an education writer presenting the story through that lens. That makes sense, I suppose. At the same time, our mantra at GetReligion is that ghosts linked to the power of religious faith haunt all kinds of stories, from education to business to sports. That certainly appears to be the case here.

This profile skirts right at the edges of Sister Dolores’ faith, without ever delving into the big questions of her life and ministry:

For 39 years she has taught the fourth grade Sunday school class at St. Francis Xavier in Park Slope and runs the annual Christmas pageant there. The night before the play, she irons all the costumes, Joseph’s headpiece, Mary’s veil, the angels’ white robes.

When the final curtain goes down, Sister Dolores goes up and collects the straw scattered around the baby Jesus’ manger, stuffing it into a plastic bag to use again at the next year’s pageant.

On Monday nights, she has a private counseling practice. Any money she takes in — for her therapy sessions or the 60-hour weeks at Fontbonne — she turns over to her religious order, the Sisters of St. Joseph. In return, she receives a few-hundred dollar monthly stipend, which is what is meant by an oath of poverty.

At the end, the writer — whose format appears to be more of a column than a straight news account — reflects on Sister Dolores entering the convent “just as the church was being turned upside down.” Unfortunately, that little bombshell is dropped into the profile/feature/column/whatever without any explanation.

Then there’s a quick, unexplored mention of “the church’s glass ceiling”:

Given the range of possibilities available to women today, and the thickness of the church’s glass ceiling, it is unlikely that there are many more Sister Doloreses on the way.

Which makes it hard to imagine who there will be to iron Mary’s veil, inspect the seniors’ gowns, balance a multimillion-dollar school budget, look deep into boys’ souls and graduate 132 educated girls of good moral character, all for just a few hundred dollars a month.

Hmmmmm …

Top image via Shutterstock

Time to catch up with a recent story that got buried in all of the coverage of President Barack Obama’s evolution on the definition of marriage and Mitt Romney’s adventures in Moral Majority territory.

When I started reading this Associated Press report, I found it rather liberating. It was nice to read a story about Catholic nuns that was unrelated to the whole uproar about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Vatican’s attempt to pull that organization’s leaders out of the world of beyond-Jesus experimentation. It was good to read another story about how Catholic religious are coping with recruiting issues in the digital age.

BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — When Sister Elaine Lachance devoted herself to a religious life straight out of high school in 1959, her religious order had more than a dozen convents in the U.S. with nearly 260 sisters.

Today, the Good Shepherd Sisters of Quebec, based in Canada, has just five convents in Maine and Massachusetts with 56 sisters. The youngest is 64 years old, and it’s been more than 20 years since a new member joined.

Rather than leave the future of the convents to prayer and chance, Lachance has turned to the Internet. She’s using social media and blogging to attract women who feel the calling to serve God and their community.

However, as I kept reading the story I had second thoughts.

Things were fine as long as the focus stayed on this one order and its challenges. The problems, for me, began when the AP team tried to broaden the scope of the story to look at the current crisis facing nuns, in general.

The number of nuns and sisters has plunged through the decades as more career opportunities for women opened, parochial schools closed and sisterhood became less visible. … In the U.S., the count has fallen from about 180,000 in 1965 to 55,000 last year, a drop of nearly 70 percent, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 2009, their median age was 73, with 91 percent of them 60 and older.

GetReligion readers who are active Catholics will immediately spot the key issue and, unfortunately, it does have something to do with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

It appears that the team behind this story does not seem to realize that, in addition to that large body on the progressive side of the spectrum, conservative Catholics have formed their own network for religious orders that are dedicated to more traditional, even contemplative, forms of religious life. That group is called the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, which was founded in 1992.

To understand what is happening, the AP really needed to answer some basic questions: Are some orders declining, while others are growing? Are some orders declining at a more rapid rate than others? In particular, I wanted to know if the numbers in that 2009 CARA study can be tweaked to separate the LCWR orders from the CMSWR orders.

In other words, the story assumes that all of these religious orders face the same challenges and the same bleak prospects. That may not be the case.

This does not mean that the hook for this story — the fact that some orders are using the Internet to seek recruits — isn’t invalid. This is a timely subject for a news feature, and the AP report contains some fascinating details:

… (T)here’s been an uptick among women showing an interest in pursuing a religious life, said Patrice Tuohy of the National Religious Vocation Council, a Chicago-based group representing vocation directors for religious organizations. The NRVC launched a website called VocationMatch.com seven years ago that links young people interested in leading religious lives to religious communities. The site gets about 6,000 inquiries a year. The Internet is useful for such questions because it offers instant information and is anonymous, Tuohy said. …

Audra Turnbull, 23, turned to the Internet when she felt the calling in college. Inside the chapel at Quincy University in Quincy, Ill., she pulled out her laptop, Googled “nuns” and found a website called A Nun’s Life. In time, she checked out dozens of other websites, YouTube videos and social media before getting touch with a motherhouse in Monroe, Mich., where she plans to join the ministry.

Those tools are invaluable for “nunnabes” — wannabe nuns — like her, she said.

“It’s hard to find nuns these days to talk to them,” she said. “So a sister being interviewed or giving ministry on YouTube has been huge because you put yourself in that place and visualize what you want to be doing.”

Turnbull expects to become a sister in two to three years. She’s also created a blog of her own called The Awkward Catholic, which takes readers through the process of entering religious life.

Read it all and check out some of the links.

Again, let me stress that this is a valid story on a fascinating topic. The problem is that it omitted one additional fact that readers needed to know in order to understand the current realities — the fact that not all of these orders are in decline. Some are growing. As Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink stated in her now infamous 2007 keynote address (.pdf here) at a national LCWR assembly:

“They are putting on the habit, or continuing to wear the habit with zest. … Some would critique that they are the nostalgic portrait of a time now passed. But they are flourishing. Young adults are finding in these communities a living image of their romantic view of Religious Life. They are entering. And they are staying. …”

In other words, this AP story needed one or two more voices, to capture another point of view on this crisis.

If you take the future of journalism seriously, you might consider reading a new piece on how journalism isn’t just being overlooked, it’s being replaced.

Follow the right people and organizations on Facebook and Twitter, and you’ll find out what’s happening close to you, straight from the source. LocalWiki, Pinwheel, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare clearly do not replace a good local newspaper, but they offer a combo that is increasingly becoming good enough.

We saw the trend back when Craigslist began killing newspaper’s classified ads, and now we’re seeing increasing competition over content. Honestly, why would I read your book review when I can see my friends’ Goodreads ratings, Facebook recommends and Amazon reviews? Why would I read your story on President Obama and gay marriage, when I can read any old blog, twitter or comment thread about it? What new piece of information are you adding to the table that competes for my valuable time looking at puppies on Pinterest? As Stijn Debrouwere writes, “[T]here’s a limit to our appetite, and every minute spent on Facebook is one not spent on a news site.”

There are organizations and websites everywhere that are taking over newspapers’ role as tastemaker and watchdog and forum. These disruptors don’t replace investigative reporting, but they replace the other 95% of what made professional news organizations important.

What does this have to do with religion journalism? Fred Clark (thank you!) started me on a rant about how the media needs to think more carefully about how they spend their resources. Discussions about the future raise the question of whether outlets are currently spending valuable time and money in places that could be allocated elsewhere. I brought up two case studies connected to President Obama’s announcement on gay marriage.

For another case study, let’s consider Mitt Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University over the weekend. Yes, it was symbolic, but people who care were probably watching via web stream anyway, following on Twitter and commenting about it to their Facebook friends. I’m not saying reporters shouldn’t cover it. I’m generally pleased to see a religion story make national news.

I’m questioning whether we need a number of national journalists flocking down to Lynchburg to cover a speech that’s widely available to the public. It’s why I spent the beautiful morning at the zoo with my niece instead of glued to my computer, watching the speech later. From what I understand, Romney didn’t convert from Mormonism, so I didn’t see much breaking news. Why don’t news outlets at least post a link to full video and text, instead of just their take on it? You would think after several years of blogs now, outlets would catch up.

I heard some lamenting about how fewer reporters are covering the presidential campaigns and I can’t help but wonder: why are there so many reporters on the campaigns to begin with, when they all seem to cover the same story every day? There are exceptional reporters, of course, but Middle America often sees one narrative coming from the Beltway, trust me. I could see an exception for outlets like wire services and a few national publications, but everyone doesn’t have to pretend to be the New York Times, right? Besides, isn’t it a bit paparazzi-ish?

If anything on the Liberty story, the political reporters might consider stepping aside and letting religion reporters take the ball on this one. For political reporters, all that seems to matter is the vote count. Religion reporters can dig deeper into why theological differences matter, as Terry pointed out. In a recent chat I had with Sarah Posner on Bloggingheads, we talked about how Romney dropped names of well-regarded figures among evangelicals, such as Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, William Wilberforce and others. Would political reporters pick up on those names enough to know that he was signaling something?

Would a journalist (reporter or editor) with religion sensibilities write, as The New York Times did, Pat Roberts instead or Pat Robertson, or describe Liberty University as “the spiritual heart of the conservative movement.” Are political journalists willing to dig for background on President Obama’s note of the Golden Rule for his support for gay marriage? Those who focus only on votes risk losing an audience that wants a bigger picture.

Remember the piece I mentioned at the beginning of this post? Here’s one of his big tips:

Write to people’s passion, and they will gobble up just about anything.

Hey, you know what people are passionate about? You guessed it: Religion! (ba-dum-ching!)

Leading media gurus might want to put their heads together to figure out what they can produce that is truly unique to the Internet, TV, print, or however else people are consuming information. Otherwise, we might all be working for Wikipedia some day.

Image of sleeping puppies via Wikimedia Commons.

Here we go again.

If you are interested in religion news (as opposed to pure politics), and you are willing to look at Mitt Romney’s Liberty University commencement speech from the point of view of the audience, then it’s pretty clear which paragraph deserves the most attention. Here it is:

People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology. Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview. The best case for this is always the example of Christian men and women working and witnessing to carry God’s love into every life. …

Focus on that first sentence. Romney tells the audience — packed with evangelical, Pentecostal and even fundamentalist Protestants — that he knows that they are believers in “different faiths.” Not different churches, different denominations or different movements. He also says that he knows they are divided by doctrinal differences that are so basic that they are, literally, creedal. They are divided, in other words, by theology.

Romney then goes on to say, however, that they are united by “shared moral convictions” and a “common worldview.” Basically, he asks for civic tolerance on behalf of a common cultural cause.

Divided by creed and theology. Got it.

United by “worldview,” one of the vague, but hot, buzz words of recent decades in evangelical life. Got it, sort of.

This brings us to the top of The New York Times report on this event:

LYNCHBURG, Va. — Mitt Romney traveled to Liberty University, the spiritual heart of the conservative movement, on Saturday, seeking to quell concerns about him among evangelical voters by offering a forceful defense of faith and Christian values in public life.

At a graduation speech at the college, founded by the evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, Mr. Romney made the case that he is bound theologically and politically to the same belief and value system as Christian conservatives, though he never explicitly mentioned his Mormon faith.

Now wait a minute. Yes on the whole vague “values” thing, but did Romney say that he was united to these Protestant conservatives in a common “belief … system,” a term that most of his listeners would have associated with doctrines and theology?

No, he didn’t. In fact, he said he was a believer in a different faith. He then asked these listeners to accept him as an ally on matters of culture and morality — a coalition-building formula that would have sounded very familiar on a campus built by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the interfaith, not ecumenical, group called the Moral Majority (which always included Mormons, from day one).

A few lines later, the Times repeats a common, and related, error in news coverage of this topic.

It was Mr. Romney’s most extensive and direct discussion of religion since his 2007 speech about his own faith and was intended to help him reassure conservatives, some of whom do not accept Mormonism as a Christian religion.

Note that, in this case, “conservatives” stands alone. In the context, however, it would appear that this means conservative Protestants, once again implying that they are the only Trinitarian Christians who do not accept Mormonism as fully Christian. Tell that to the Vatican, to Constantinople, the Lutherans, the United Methodists, etc., etc. In fact, has any Trinitarian Christian body accepted the validity of Mormon scriptures, doctrines and rites? I seem to remember that one or two Episcopal Church dioceses have done so, but I cannot find the reference.

Later on in the story, the Times repeats this same flawed formula:

Mormons consider themselves Christians, as noted in the church’s formal name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but evangelicals do not consider the Mormon scripture to be Christian.

Here is my question for GetReligion readers: What is the alleged content of this statement that journalists keep making, the statement that evangelical Christians — apparently alone — do not accept Mormons as Christians (as opposed to other Trinitarian Christian groups)? I think the point is that many evangelicals may carry their doctrinal grudges into voting booths, the only territory that matters to far too many journalists.

You can see this same problem in many other stories about the Liberty University address. Take the USA Today story, for example, which noted:

Mormonism has been a controversial topic among some evangelicals.

Right. Some evangelicals. That’s all.

How about The Washington Post?

Romney’s Mormon faith is a sensitive subject on campus at Liberty, where each class opens with biblical devotionals and the curriculum refers to Mormonism as conflicting with the school’s Christian theology.

Right. The issue is simply Liberty University’s approach to Christian theology. That’s the problem.

Here’s the irony. It seems, when one reads the full text of Romney’s speech, that the candidate knew more about the hurdles he faced in that public address than the journalists sent to cover it. Thus, he admitted that they were believers in different faiths, divided by theology and creed, but that they could — with civic tolerance — be united in worldview, “values” and a common cause.

Romney would need to give the same speech at Catholic University, Wheaton College, Baylor University, Calvin College and in numerous other settings, because he would need to make the same essential point. How many journalists understand that?

Embedded here is a clip from CNN’s Reliable Sources, headlined “Media embrace same-sex marriage story,” where host Howard Kurtz discusses the media coverage of President Barack Obama’s announcement regarding same-sex marriage with Terence Smith, Nia-Malika Henderson and Lauren Ashburn. Are media rooting for Obama on same-sex marriage? Should ABC have agreed that the Obama administration could pick the host to do the big interview regarding this news? And should journalists have pressed Obama about his claim he didn’t support same-sex marriage when everyone “knew” he did? Readers interested in media coverage of this issue will find this bit interesting. Later in the show, Kurtz interviewed Matt Lewis and John Aravosis about similar topics.

I’m trying to take a longer view of the media coverage. Obviously the culture warriors within the mainstream media were extremely happy about President Obama saying he supports redefining marriage to include same-sex unions. And the coverage has reflected that elation, more or less. But that doesn’t mean all the coverage has been bad. In fact, I’ve seen some shockingly good coverage, too. (And I’m still trying to process how biased pieces like this get written, much less published.)

One of the things that panelist Terence Smith said in the CNN clip above was that Obama wouldn’t lose a single vote on this issue, a rather dramatic claim. Kurtz interjected that it remained to be seen. Which brings us to how the media has covered early polls on the issue. I was alerted to this mainstream media mistake by Mickey Kaus over at The Daily Caller. He points out the headline The Hill ran:

Majority say Obama’s gay marriage stance won’t change their vote

And here’s the lede:

A majority of voters say President Obama’s decision to come out in support of gay marriage will not sway their decision in the fall election.

According to a Gallup poll released on Friday, 60 percent of adults nationally said Obama’s new position makes no difference, while 26 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for the president and 13 percent said it would make them more likely to.

Now, if the media are going to be so obsessed with politics, and we all know they are, at the very least they could cover political implications of races much better. It takes about one day on the campaign trail to learn that all of that money being spent in races across the country is a huge battle over a very tiny percentage of the vote. The fact is that a certain percentage of people never vote. And of those who do vote, their mind is made up quite early in a race. All that money President Obama and Mitt Romney are raising these days (not to mention all the races downticket) is over a relatively small percentage of the vote.

So if Gallup finds out that 26 percent of people are less likely to vote for Obama because of his public change on same-sex marriage and that this is twice as much as those who say it makes them more likely, that’s actually pretty big news. News that is the opposite of what the headline says.

Or as Kaus put it:

But 39% said it would–and they split two-to-one against Obama and gay marriage. Since the election is currently not two-to-one against Obama, that’s a net loss right there.

Worse, among independents, 23% said it would make them less likely to vote for Obama while only 11% said it made them more likely–a net negative for 12% in this group. Obviously, “less likely” doesn’t mean it’s going to be the deciding factor for that 12%–there are bigger issues, and gay marriage seems likely to fade in salience. But even if it’s the deciding factor for a tenth of that 12%, it’s a blow to Obama’s chances. The headline should have read something like:

Poll: Obama’s gay marriage stance hurts him with key voters

It goes without saying that one should correctly interpret the polls before explaining why voters are responding as they are, an area where religious views surely play a significant role.

If you’re interested in the topic of evangelical attitudes toward same-sex marriage, this is an excellent piece analyzing just that.

I went on a little rant last week about whether media outlets are dividing up their resources in savvy ways. One of the biggest issues I see is whether reporters should rush to cover the latest trending topic when they’re not given the time to develop unique, original stories.

One of the most obvious examples of a flocking to the same story trend came last week with President Obama’s announcement on same-sex marriage. The announcement was a big deal, for many, many reasons. Yes, I also contributed a piece to the flock of stories. But are media outlets, in their attempts to cover the “big story,” allocating their resources wisely? Let’s look at two articles as case studies.

First, we have Reuters, a wire service that managed to produce the most predictable 550-word story with eight — eight! — staffers. They did win the prize for the most bizarre lede of the day:

Some rejoiced in the U.S. president’s courage. Others predicted hellfire at the polls. One pastor said he would reflect on the matter in prayer.

I don’t doubt that someone somewhere predicted hellfire at the polls, but none of the quotes in the story back up that lede. Instead, the quotes are full of might-as-well-be-press-release-material quotes.

“It just makes me giddy with joy. I have been bouncing around all day,”

“I’m not happy with it. I believe scripture. God’s word says gay marriage is wrong.”

Quote from a statement

Quote from a statement

“I don’t think that’s appropriate for the president,” Bargaineer said. “The Bible’s strictly against that.”

“Because he understands oppression, he knows that loves is no second-class thing,”

“It has taken him a while to get there,” he said, “but it is just deeply moving for me to hear the president of the United States finally acknowledge the full dignity and humanity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and our families.”

Really? This is what an international wire service moves? If the story had one reporter on the breaking news story, I might understand it. But eight — again, eight — reporters dredged up these quotes?

Second, we have the New York Times, which devoted nine reporters for its second-day story. I think we’re supposed to be impressed that the reporters come from all around the country?

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. apologized to President Obama for hastening him into an endorsement of same-sex marriage, several people briefed on the exchange said Thursday, even as the White House sought to capitalize in the campaign on Mr. Obama’s long-awaited expression of support.

Well, what did Biden say?

Many conservative advocacy groups displayed no such reticence to wade into the debate. These groups, which will play major roles in trying to motivate voters to the polls, see an opportunity to drive a wedge between Mr. Obama and religious voters, a group he made significant inroads with in 2008.

Well, what are the polls showing?

Despite the White House friction, by Thursday there were signs that Mr. Obama’s comments had compelled a number of liberal donors, who had previously remained on the sidelines, to open their wallets.

Well, how much money did he raise in the first day?

Sure, you won’t get to those questions when you’re breaking news, but if you’re putting nine reporters on it for a second day follow, you should be able to get more specifics. The piece focuses on OMG, what is this going to do for the election, and not OMG, what is this going to mean legally. For the latter angle, I looked to coverage from Scotusblog to explain some really basic facts about what Obama’s announcement did—and didn’t—say. For instance, the federal government hasn’t and probably won’t get involved in a challenge to Proposition 8. So what does Obama’s support mean at the state level, when he’s said it’s not a federal issue?

In our two case studies, one is a wire service and one is a national newspaper, so of course they’re going to devote a lot of resources to a major story. But did they break any ground that other people weren’t going to break? Not in those pieces.

Image of the Pied Piper via Wiki Commons.

In this week’s podcast Issues Etc. host Todd Wilkin and I discussed two recent GetReligion stories: the withdrawal of First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Springs from the PC(USA) and the latest developments in the Irish abuse scandals.

As Nathaniel Campbell noted in his comment on the Colorado Springs article, the press frequently conflates the disputes within the mainline denominations into a single issue — homosexuality.

Campbell writes:

there are deeper but acknowledged issues here over hermeneutics and the evangelical insistence on privileging (often exclusionarily) a literal reading of Scripture.

In my estimation, at least, that is the major “ghost” behind a lot of mainstream/evangelical friction. While on the surface level it manifests as doctrinal disputes, I think it is at root a problem over how to read and understand Scripture.

Wilkin and I discuss the issue of press blindness, noting the divisions within the mainline churches do not stop at homosexuality as the breakaway groups are divided over another Scripture-driven issue: women clergy.

We also look at the coverage in the Irish Times over the fallout from the 1 May 2012 documentary “The Shame of the Catholic Church”, where the BBC claimed that as a young priest in the early 1970’s Cardinal Sean Brady failed to take sufficient action in the case of pedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

I argued that the advocacy journalism approach taken by the Irish Times in its reporting on the Catholic Church was self-defeating. By adopting a relentlessly hostile approach to coverage of the Catholic Church,the Irish Times was preaching to the choir. Those ill-disposed to the church would find confirmation of their views, while those supportive of the church would see their reporting as biased.

The comments to the story demonstrated this. As one commentator noted:

The Irish establishment, including their media, has long been anti Catholic, because the church stood in the way of Ireland becoming “modern” (read divorce, birth control and abortion). The “abuse” saga is a godsend to them to destroy the influence of the church, which was standing in the way of a modern forward looking culture. Perhaps this is why the story is made to sound as if the church is again being it’s old stubborn old fashioned self.

In its simplest sense, the problem with advocacy journalism is that it is based on the supposition that there is no one truth. Truth is subjective, or relative — I have my truth, you have yours. Why then should the journalist strive for balance or fairness, when at heart there is no single point of reference in which to frame a story?