Ethics

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Devil in the details: Oklahoma religion writer shows how to report a controversy

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Devil's advocate? Carla Hinton of The Oklahoman didn't go quite that far in her story about an archbishop versus a Satanist group. But she did talk to both sides and showed how a principled, professional religion writer works.

At issue was a lawsuit by Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City to halt a planned "black mass" in a public hall. His complaint was that the mass would include a desecration of the Host, or consecrated Eucharistic bread -- and argued that the bread must have been stolen.

In a couple of crisp paragraphs, Hinton and contributing writer William Crumm lay out the issues:

Coakley is asking the court to require the Oklahoma County sheriff to obtain the Eucharistic host from the Satanist group and deliver it to him as the local leader of the Catholic Church. The lawsuit states that in order for an unauthorized individual to have a consecrated host, he or she would have had to obtain it through illicit means such as “theft, fraud, wrongful taking or other form of misappropriation, either by Defendants or by someone else.”

In the lawsuit, Coakley said the consecrated host — typically a small unleavened wafer of bread — is considered sacred by Catholic Christians. It is an integral part of the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion.


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Pope Francis in South Korea: Broad variety of coverage

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How do you get the New York Times interested in Protestants?

Easy. Quote the Protestants freaking out over a visit by the Pope Francis. In classic form, the newspaper uses a single source to explore (exploit?) differences among Christians as Francis prays for peace and unity there.

It's one of more than 3,900 articles on the first pope to visit Korea since John Paul II in 1989.

It's also an extreme example of the antagonistic coverage the church gets from American reporters, according to an article by Father Thomas Reese in the National Catholic Reporter.  Reese complains that while obsessing over abortion, gay marriage and birth control, reporters have been ignoring other actions of the American bishops -- such as their stances on the environment, disarmament, immigration reform and peace in the Middle East.

That sounds really, really serious, when this Reese piece is actually quite hilarious, which is why religion-beat pros have been chattering about it for days. This is your chance to hear (read, actually) a priest respond "Go in peace" after a journalist curses.

But back to the pope and South Korea. We'll get to the Times'  behavior later. Fortunately, other stories show some lucid, literate coverage.


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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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Ebola and missionaries: CNN feature offers an intense look

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The sacrificial lifestyle of medical missionaries in the worst known Ebola outbreak -- with two of them coming down with the virus themselves -- cries out for thoughtful, sensitive coverage. So it was a pleasure to see CNN provide it. And in a refreshingly long-form newsfeature.

Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the missionaries, get a searching, respectful look in this 2,087-word piece from a news outfit known better for soundbites and surface treatments. The many-sided article deals with the missionaries' backgrounds and with the number and types of Christian missionaries. It sketches the history of the American missionary initiative and even takes up the question -- as a subhead asks -- of whether Writebol and Brantly were "heroic or foolish" for putting themselves in harm's way.

The heavily researched story cites more than a dozen sources, either directly or via other media. Writers Daniel Burke and Ashley Fantz draw from several reputable groups -- not only missions like Serving in Mission, which Writebol works for, but also think tanks like the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.

Their fact-finding yields some interesting insights. One is that, according to the center at Gordon-Conwell, about 71 percent of the world has heard the gospel as of this summer. Another insight is that although missionaries have worked for centuries, their numbers have "exploded" -- as high as 2.4 million -- since the rise of short-term missions in the 1970s.

The employers of the two American Ebola patients -- Samaritan's Purse for Brantly, Servants in Mission for Writebol -- naturally get a closer look. Burke and Fantz do so by smoothly working in the missionaries' backgrounds and how they felt called to the vocation.

Casual observers may be surprised to find out the language and cultural training that people undergo before they can represent a mission group like SIM. That agency's George Salloum offers this snapshot:


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Ghost hunting in Thailand: Why didn't surrogate abort?

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A surrogate mother bears fraternal twins, one of them with Down's syndrome. She carries the child to term "on religious grounds," in defiance of the parents' order to abort him. So they take the non-Down's child, leaving the other with her.

Prime soap material, you'll no doubt agree. But for GetReligion folks, this Reuters article out of Thailand fairly shouts something else: "Ghost Story!"

 But we ain't 'fraid o' no ghosts. Let's take a closer look:

Pattaramon Janbua said her doctors, the surrogacy agency and the baby's parents knew he was disabled at four months but did not inform her until the seventh month when the agency asked her - at the parents' request - to abort the disabled fetus.
Pattaramon, 21, told Reuters Television she refused the abortion on religious grounds and carried both him and his twin sister to term six months ago. The parents, who have not been identified, took only the girl back with them to Australia.

OK, ghost hunting time. On what religious grounds did Pattaramon Janbua refuse to abort Gammy? The beliefs of Theravada, the main form of Buddhism in Thailand?


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Portland, part II: Saving kids from 'fundamentalist sect'

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My colleague Bobby Ross Jr. picked the better article. As much fault as he found with a story in the Portland Oregonian about Child Evangelism Fellowship, the Associated Press version of the flap is even worse. CEF does a lot of summer Bible programs, rather like those conducted by the nation's thousands of churches. The difference is that the Fellowship does it outside church walls. That's what got a group in Portland upset -- and apparently the AP, as well.

As the AP sees it, CEF wants to "convert children as young as 5" in places like "apartment pools and public parks other gathering spots this summer." That's "got some residents upset," the story says:

They've banded together in recent weeks to warn parents about the Child Evangelism Fellowship's Good News Club, buying a full-page ad in the local alternative weekly to highlight the group's tactics.

"They pretend to be a mainstream Christian Bible study when in fact they're a very old school fundamentalist sect," said Kaye Schmitt, an organizer with Protect Portland Children, which takes issue with the group's message and the way it's delivering it.

Let's pause for a little dissection. Besides asking how many is "some" residents -- A hundred? Twenty? Five? -- why use a military term like "tactics," when something less pejorative like "methods" would suffice?


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UCLA study literally tries to sell gay marriage in Texas

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Help gays marry and boost the economy: That's one of the newest pitches in gay rights circles. A new story in Houston Chronicle says legalizing same-sex marriage could boost state income by $180 million over three years. The thorny issues are explored in this reprint from the Texas Tribune, a non-profit journalistic think tank. The story is interesting, intelligent and mostly fair to conservative and liberal sources alike. But it does leave a few questions.

The news peg is a study by UCLA researchers. It "predicts that more than 23,000 same-sex couples in Texas would marry within three years if the state allowed them to," the article says. According to the study, those 23,000 couples would add nearly $15 million in sales tax over three years. And if Texas beat neighboring Louisiana and Oklahoma, the state might reap even more.

It's a clever tactic, especially for a state that has fought gay marriage at least since Texas passed a constitutional amendment against it in 2005. Here's a pro-gay reaction from the story:

The report, which applies Texas population data to a model based on states where gay marriage has been legalized, provides a financial argument for same-sex marriage, said Kevin Nix, a spokesman for Freedom to Marry, a gay rights group.

"There is a fiscal component, and there is also a families component," he said. "Allowing gay people to marry is actually a conservative value. It's about limited government and it's about stronger families."

And lookit that: two paragraphs from the opposition. I like The Texas Tribune already.


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Should Louisiana priest say what he heard in confession?

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Dead men file no lawsuits. They also don’t defend themselves to TV reporters. And live priests don’t divulge what they hear in the confessional. That frees news media like WBRZ-TV to pile on the bias without being sued or contradicted.

Rebecca Mayeux, 20, told the Baton Rouge station that she was molested when she was 14 by George Charlet Jr., a fellow parishioner at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church. She says she went three times about it to the pastor, Father Jeff Bayhi, only to be rebuffed. "This is your problem. Sweep it under the floor and get rid of it," she says he told her.

When she finally told her parents, they hired a lawyer, but the case has been complicated by the sudden death of the alleged molester of a heart attack. That puts pressure on Bayhi to talk about what he heard during confession.

WBRZ's so-called Investigative Unit totally takes Mayeux's side. It paints her as "an intelligent college student in the prime of her life" and that "reading is one of her favorite hobbies" -- as if she'd be less credible if she were old, dumb and illiterate.

Chris Nakamoto, the main inquisitor, er, reporter, switches between saying what happened "according to Mayeux" and assuming that it all happened as she says. He shows a picture of Mayeux and Charlet "during the time frame Charlet was sexually abusing her, and brainwashing her through what she says were emails and scripture." Interestingly, the text version of the story softens that accusation to "when she claims Charlet was abusing her" (emphasis mine).

WBRZ tries a "gotcha" moment with a TV videoclip of a YouTube homily by Bayhi, in which he urges parents to take action when they learn their children are being hurt. The clip "appears to contradict what he told Rebecca Mayeux," Nakamoto says, ignoring the other possibility: that it simply contradicts what Mayeux claims the priest would say in such a situation.


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In this New York Times piece, bias against AA is a hard habit to break

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Sometimes our readers are sharper than us professional word pushers. One of them just dismantled a New York Times feature with the skill of a soldier field-stripping a rifle. The article in question looks at the Center for Motivation and Change, an anti-addiction program that favors secular counseling, therapy and medication. Well and good, as far as that goes.

But the article also notes how CMC shuns the 12-step method of Alcoholics Anonymous. No, more than that. It tries again and again to prove the superiority of the secular method, via biased wording, cherry-picking research and mainly quoting one side.

Again and again, CMC is held up as the enlightened, proven, "evidence-based" approach to kicking substance abuse:

It is part of a growing wing of addiction treatment that rejects the A.A. model of strict abstinence as the sole form of recovery for alcohol and drug users.

Instead, it uses a suite of techniques that provide a hands-on, practical approach to solving emotional and behavioral problems, rather than having abusers forever swear off the substance — a particularly difficult step for young people to take.

And unlike programs like Al-Anon, A.A.’s offshoot for family members, the C.M.C.’s approach does not advocate interventions or disengaging from someone who is drinking or using drugs. “The traditional language often sets parents up to feel they have to make extreme choices: Either force them into rehab or detach until they hit rock bottom,” said Carrie Wilkens, a psychologist who helped found the C.M.C. 10 years ago. “Science tells us those formulas don’t work very well.”

We'll get to that question of how well the CMC works in a moment. For now, let's note the code words of "strict" and "traditional," as if AA and Al-Anon are based on some Amish settlement. Those and other forms of gaming raised the ire of our friend Jean Lahondere.


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