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New York Times Metro desk probes some of the church-state ties that bind

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I continue to field questions about the meaning of the term "Kellerism," which is well on its way to entering the GetReligionista dictionary. To catch up on that debate, surf this collection of links or, in particular, read this earlier post.

The bottom line: "Kellerism," a direct reference to you know who saying you know what, is deliberate advocacy journalism in coverage of hot-button stories linked to religious, moral and cultural issues. The key is that The Times, as an institution, has never formally stated that its commitment to accurate, balanced coverage has been edited in this manner. This is a selective bias.

However, some recent trends at The Times may require a slight tweaking of my definition. It appears that "Kellerism" primarily kicks into play in stories addressing issues linked to the world's most powerful newspapers's defense of sacred doctrines linked to the Sexual Revolution. Long-suffering religious believers who continue to follow the newspaper day after day may have noticed that its Metro desk is producing some very interesting and fair-minded coverage of religion.

Consider the recent news feature that ran under the headline, "De Blasio’s Prekindergarten Expansion Collides With Church-State Divide."


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Amen to this question: 'What the hell is happening in Ferguson, Mo.?'

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In Ferguson, Mo. — dubbed "Baghdad, USA" by The Huffington Post and labeled a "A CITY ON EDGE" in a banner headline by today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch — Wednesday's arrests of two prominent journalists for the apparent crime of doing their jobs caused a Twitterstorm.

The social media outrage produced some, um, religious overtones.

"What the hell is happening in Ferguson, Mo.?" asked The Poynter Institute's Kelly McBride.

Those of us who write for GetReligion are religion journalists. But first of all, we are journalists. As such, I can't help but say "Amen!" to the question by McBride, a leading expert on media ethics.

Seeing photos like the Associated Press image tweeted by the Chicago Sun-Times, it's difficult to imagine that the scene unfolding in suburban St. Louis is actually happening right here in the United States of America.


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God, Ebola, postmodern journalism and Nigeria

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The Ebola epidemic has produced mixed bag of reporting from the Western press. With 961 dead and almost 2000 cases reported in West Africa as of August 8, the deadly hemorrhagic fever has been covered in “on the spot”, “man in the street”, “news analysis” and science/health reports.

Some of the stories have been over the top and some quite good -- but few have looked at the epidemic from the point of view of those living in West Africa. The theme and tone of stories printed by The New York Times, for example, is American, secular and condescending. It presents the story through the filter of Western sensibilities and attitudes.  The religion angle to this story, when mentioned, is cast in post-Modernist or secularist terms: Africans are rubes who need guidance from America.

Criticism of the reporting on the “international health emergency” -- so described by the World health Organization -- has begun to appear. 


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Believe it or not, atheist churches on the rise deep in the heart of Texas

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Dog bites man? That's not news. Any journalist knows that.

Pastor goes to church? That's usually not news, either. Except, of course, if the pastor doesn't believe in God.

Newspapers seem to love breathless features about godless congregations (almost as much as bloggers like me enjoy contextless overgeneralizations). But seriously, see The New York Times, CNN's "Belief Blog" and The Tennessean for relatively recent stories on Bible Belt atheists going to church. I critiqued a similar Tulsa World story for GetReligion two years ago.

Enter The Dallas Morning News with a pretty good report headlined "Atheist churches provide a community for Dallas nonbelievers."

The Dallas story is written by an obviously talented young reporter whose LinkedIn page indicates she helped lead Bible studies for children in a previous gig. Any constructive criticism I offer in this post relates not to the aspiring journalist but to improvements I wish editors at the Morning News — a major metropolitan newspaper — had initiated.


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Role of religion in clashes between the Islamic State and Turkey?

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Day after day, the news keeps flooding into major media about the victories of the Islamic State and the long-range implications of this movement for the Middle East and surrounding regions. Like I said the other day, it's frustrating to try to keep track of it all.

But the coverage does seem to be improving, especially if your goal is to find clues as to the role religion is playing in this historic drama. Here at GetReligion, we continue to be interested in mainstream-news coverage of several fronts, especially the impact of ISIS rule on religious minorities, including Christians, and the violence that is rising between warring Islamic camps.

On that second issue, The Washington Post foreign desk just turned its attention to strife on the Turkish border in a solid news feature that ran under the headline, "In Turkey, a late crackdown on Islamist fighters."

Note the word "late" in that headline. 


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Coping with a gay daughter: The Tennessean in Nashville goes retro

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The Tennessean's feature on a mother's relationship with her gay daughter is a timely, up-to-the-minute feature. Or it would be, if this were the 1980s.

Seriously, how do you run 1,500-plus words on something like this in 2014? A sympathy piece on a devout woman who learns that her daughter is gay, then supports her against the prejudices of her church? A topic that was strip-mined years ago?

Mark Kellner, a friend of this blog, aptly calls this story "GR (GetReligion) bait." All of it is reported from the viewpoint of the mother. Not a word from the father or the son, or the daughter herself. And no one from church -- either the church that the mother attends or the one she left.

Purely from a writing standpoint, I can see why the story would interest an editor. Its terse, taut style would have made Hemingway proud:

Dawn Bennett thought she knew herself.

Wife. Mother of three. Devout Christian.

She thought she knew her daughter.

Guitarist. Softball player. Girl of unfaltering faith.

She didn't really know either.

Raising a gay child has taught her that.

In the six years since 19-year-old Erica Duclos looked into her mother's eyes and spoke openly about her sexuality, Bennett has fought fear, endured questions about God and grace, and struggled toward acceptance.

She loves her daughter, and she loves her God. Every day, her family and her faith collide. But the path forward is less about conflict than fortitude.

A promising lede, to be sure. But it doesn't deliver. Nor, as I've suggested, does it attempt anything like a balance.


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Pro-abortion bias in news story on Catholic universities? Well, duh

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"Biased much?" asked a reader who passed along a link to a San Francisco Chronicle story on two Catholic universities limiting employees' abortion coverage.

You mean the fact that the news report is slanted — from the very top — toward the abortion-rights point of view and leans heavily in that side's favor in the amount of ink given to direct quotes?

OK, maybe you have a point, dear reader.

Pro-abortion bias seeping into mainstream media reports is not exactly breaking news, of course. But the Chronicle makes a noble effort at perfecting the craft.

The lede sets the stage:

California has some of the nation's strongest protections for abortion rights. But the recent decisions by two Catholic universities, Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount, to eliminate most abortion insurance coverage for their employees were cleared in advance by state agencies.
Now Gov. Jerry Brown's administration is taking another look.
The state Department of Managed Health Care is conducting "an in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding coverage for abortion services under California law," said Marta Green, the department's chief deputy director.
What the department is reconsidering, as first reported by California Lawyer magazine, is whether the universities are violating a 1975 state law that requires managed health plans to cover all "medically necessary" procedures.

 


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God, angels, demons and the brilliant, troubled life of Robin Williams

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In the end, it was all about the voices in Robin William's head, the brilliant voices, the angelic voices and what he often described as the quiet voices of his demons. Almost every mainstream media obituary for the beloved actor and comic includes some variation on this passage from the main story at The Los Angeles Times:

Over the years, the international superstar struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction. ... Williams was a close friend of the late comic John Belushi and was with him March 5, 1982, just hours before Belushi died of an overdose at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. The pain of a friend's death helped Williams kick his own bad habits, but the cure wasn't permanent.

In 2006, he returned to rehab after two decades of sobriety.

"You're standing at a precipice and you look down, there's a voice and it's a little quiet voice that goes, 'Jump!' " he told ABC News.

Sometimes the voices told him to do things that, as an addict, he knew were completely irrational. He didn't mind telling people that he knew what it was like to wrestle with demons inside his own head. That voice on the precipice? 


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Irish Times gets creative to report on persecuted Iraqi Christians

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At a time when, as tmatt observes,  "journalists from mainstream media are struggling to do first-hand coverage" of religious persecution under Islamic State rule, an Irish Times reporter uses creative sourcing to get a first-hand account from the ground: "Fleeing Child Abduction, Slavery, Rape and Theft in Iraq."

Lara Marlowe, the Irish Times' Paris correspondent, found an Iraqi Christian expatriate whose sister Mariam fled Mosul with her husband Youssef in June as ISIS was closing in. Now taking refuge in Ainkawa, a suburb of the Iraqi city of Erbil, Mariam spoke to Marlowe via Skype, giving a detailed account of the atrocities she witnessed or learned of from neighbors. 

The story is a must-read. Seeing the events on the ground through the eyes of a single person helps bring home the enormity of the persecution. Marlowe's opening paragraphs use Mariam's experiences to highlight experiences common to many fleeing Mosul -- the loss of ancestral homes, the sight of anti-Christian graffiti, the betrayal by neighbors:

Mariam, a 50-year-old Christian obstetrician from Mosul in Iraq, considers herself and her family lucky, though she fears they will never again see the two-storey villa and garden they inherited from her husband Youssef’s parents.


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