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Correction? Associated Press misses a key detail in story about canonization of Joseph Vaz of Sri Lanka

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Papal tours are, in many ways, the Olympics of the religion-news beat and, in each and every one, there are complicated stories that require even the most experienced of reporters to improve the quality of their research folders.

And so it is with the Associated Press team that cranked out a "Pope Watch" feature the other day on some of the colorful details of the Pope Francis visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. This version ran in The New York Times.

In one case, the editors got a bit too eager to find yet another example of this charismatic, superstar pope being willing to push traditions aside and do his own thing. This led to a mistake that I hope they correct.

The subject is the canonization of the Blessed Joseph Vaz as Sri Lanka's first saint. The background on Vaz notes that:

... He was actually born an Indian in 1651 in what was then the Portuguese colony of Goa. Vaz spent 23 years ministering to the Catholic community in Sri Lanka, sometimes working in secret because of the threat of persecution by the island's Dutch rulers, who were die-hard Calvinists.

Note the persecution reference.


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Three things I liked about Washington Post's story on French Muslims torn by 'I am Charlie' slogan

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In an excellent story on French Muslims, The Washington Post introduces readers to a different side of Paris. 

The Post steps off the beaten path of reporting in the wake of last week's terror attacks and ventures into a heavily Muslim suburb.

Here's the nut graf (aka the summary up high that tells readers why they should care):

Within France’s Muslim community of some 5 million — the largest in Europe — many are viewing the tragedy in starkly different terms from their non-Muslim compatriots. They feel deeply torn by the now-viral slogan “I am Charlie,” arguing that no, they are not Charlie at all.
Many of France’s Muslims — like Abdelaali (a 17-year-old high school senior) — abhor the violence that struck the country last week. But they are also revolted by the notion that they should defend the paper. By putting the publication on a pedestal, they insist, the French are once again sidelining the Muslim community, feeding into a general sense of discrimination that, they argue, helped create the conditions for radicalization in the first place.

This story succeeds on at least three levels.


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Pass the coffee & donuts, hold the faith: KC Star looks at a non-church

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GetReligion has occasionally looked at stories about "church" for the unchurched, as tmatt did last February. But the Kansas City Star takes a close, detailed, 2,100-word look at the so-called Oasis movement, especially in the newspaper's hometown.

These "self-described freethinkers, humanists, secularists, atheists and agnostics" chat, nosh, listen to music and hear engaging messages. All without God or Bible or prayers or doctrines or other stuff that made them leave church. But with a lot of what they really value -- community:

A half-hour before everyone takes a seat, the Sunday morning coffee and doughnuts are producing their desired effect.
Fellowship: Hearty greetings, handshakes and hugs. The chatter gets boisterous as the gathering space fills.
Coffee and doughnuts are a classic element at many a house of worship. This isn’t a church, though. That’s about the last place most of these people want to be. But it’s not anti-church, either.

It's a thought-provoking story,  posing the question -- without even asking -- of the nature of the "fellowship" offered in regular congregations. But as we'll see, the story doesn't quite get to the nugget of the "community" offered at the Oasis.

Although the topic has been done and done -- invariably pegged off the Pew study on the "Nones" in October 2012 -- the Star at least featurizes the topic for its magazine. And you can't fault the story on sourcing, not with 12 quoted sources.

They include:


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Journalism and blasphemy: Can The New York Times cover Charlie Hebdo images with words, alone?

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So who is forgiving who and for what?

In the world of religion, and human rights, there is one story out there that must be discussed today and that's the post-massacre issue of Charlie Hebdo. The problem, of course, is that print journalists are trying to discuss a visual image -- yet their decision to show, or not to show, the image itself is affecting their coverage.

The New York Times -- one of the key players in this debate -- has a lengthy report on this subject that, to be blunt, quotes an admirable array of experts on what the cover may or may not mean. It's a fine story, in many ways. However, as GetReligionista emeritus M.Z. Hemingway notes with near fury at The Federalist, where's the art? We'll be back to that in a minute.

Here is how the Times states the crucial issue: What does the cover say?

The cover shows the bearded prophet shedding a tear and holding up a sign saying, “I am Charlie,” the rallying cry that has become synonymous with support of the newspaper and free expression. Above the cartoon on a green background is the headline “All is forgiven.”
While surviving staff members, at an emotional news conference, described their choice of cover as a show of forgiveness, most Muslims consider any depiction of their prophet to be blasphemous. Moreover, interpretations quickly swirled around the Internet that the cartoon also contained disguised crudity.

So forgiveness mixed with, yes, blasphemy. I would also like to raise another question: While the "All is forgiven" statement is not in a thought balloon, is it completely clear who is being forgiven and who is doing the forgiving?


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Damage done? Charlotte Observer replaces slanted report on gay substitute teacher let go by Catholic high school

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The Charlotte Observer posted a "news story" on its local news page this week concerning Lonnie Billiard, a substitute teacher at a Catholic high school, who lost his job after revealing on Facebook that he plans to marry his same-sex partner later this year.

The Pew Research Center highlighted the story on its daily email roundup of U.S. religion headlines Tuesday.

This was the link:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/01/12/5443494/charlotte-catholic-fires-gay-teacher.html#.VLWWRWTF8YK

Over at "The Deacon's Bench," blogger Greg Kandra — a Roman Catholic deacon who spent three decades as a writer and producer for CBS News — criticized the piece:

Editorial note: the rest of the Observer piece is a weepy, hand-wringing, breast-beating portrait of a wronged employee who expresses anxiety for all the gay students who fear expulsion simply because they’re gay. It’s a sustained exercise in victim journalism, with fully half of it devoted to quotes by the teacher talking about how this hurt his feelings and that he “never expected to be treated so badly by the diocese.” (Did it ever occur to him that he had violated the terms of his employment? That question never comes up.) It’s a biased, unbalanced journalistic shambles, beginning with the lead sentence: “The local Roman Catholic diocese is in hot water again for anti-LGBT discrimination…”

For readers who looked closely, the story identified the writer not as an Observer staff member but as someone with QNotes. The Observer link did not explain what it QNotes is — perhaps Charlotte readers are expected to know — but a Google search reveals that it's "the Charlotte-based LGBT community newspaper of North Carolina." 

Thus, the story published on the Observer local news page fell squarely into what GetReligion calls "What is this?" As in, is this news? Is it a column? Is it advocacy? 


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Big question in the background: What is terrorism's long-term impact on world Islam?

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Big question in the background: What is terrorism's long-term impact on world Islam?

The news media are understandably consumed with Muslim terrorists’ deadly attacks on a satirical weekly’s office and a Jewish grocery in Paris. Europeans are soul-searching over national security, anti-Semitism, and outrage against Muslims, with no evident enthusiasm for restoring any Christian vitality. Tough coverage logistics meant there was scant notice that in the same week Boko Haram destroyed a town in Nigeria and slaughtered hundreds, even as many as 2,000, inhabitants.  

There’s the usual journalistic confusion here over how to characterize the religious aspect. Just before these latest atrocities,  the journal First Things published an article on “Challenging Radical Islam” that’s must reading for reporters. Author John Azumah, a Christian expert on Islam at Columbia Theological Seminary, carefully balances the ideological complexities. Contra the left, he says “key aspects of the ideology of radical violent Muslim groups are indeed rooted in Islamic texts and history.” Yet he criticizes the right, contending that in principle Islam or the Koran or the Prophet Muhammad aren’t the real problem.
            
Azumah notes that “Muslim leaders around the world have repeatedly and publicly denounced” al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and Islamic State (ISIS). The Religion Guy addressed this last September 27 in “Who speaks for Islam in a time of terrorism?”


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Flawed, sadly one-sided longread about the lives of Oral and Richard Roberts -- that's still worth reading

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First things first. I have done my share of work, as a reporter and as a mass-media professor, with faculty from a wide range of Christian colleges and universities. Perhaps this is why I have heard of Evangel University in Springfield, Mo.

However, if you are interested in the history of religion on America, there is also a good chance that you know about Evangel, because, as its website notes:

Evangel University, the first Pentecostal liberal arts college chartered in America, opened its doors on September 1, 1955.

Why bring this up? I imagine that, out in the congregation of GetReligion readers, there are others who follow the @Longreads list that promotes lots of amazing journalism that is written in, well, a "longreads" feature style. It's a must-follow for anyone who teaches or practices journalism (or does both at the same time).

Well, the other day @Longreads alerted me to a feature story about a topic that has long interested me -- the status of the kingdom of one of North America's most interesting evangelists and broadcasters, the late Rev. Oral Roberts. The article ran at This Land Press, under the headline: "The Prodigal Prince: Richard Roberts and the Decline of the Oral Roberts Dynasty." (Interview with author Kiera Feldman here.)

This is an article worth reading, especially if -- like me -- you worked your way through that great media firestorm in the 1980s that many called "Pearlygate." I have also spoken on the campus in recent years.

Still, there are holes and a few flaws in this feature and some major missed opportunities.


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Disparity in news coverage: As many as 2,000 dead in Nigeria, but France dominates front pages

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Terror attacks in France carried out by militants claiming allegiance to al-Qaida and Islamic State extremists dominate the world's front pages.

On the other hand, the Muslim militant group Boko Haram's slaughter of as many as 2,000 Nigerians — its "deadliest act" yet, according to Amnesty International — generally settles for less-prime real estate inside newspapers.

But why?

As The Guardian put it:

What makes one massacre more newsworthy than another?

Among the extenuating circumstances cited by the British newspaper:

Reporting in northern Nigeria is notoriously difficult; journalists have been targeted by Boko Haram, and, unlike in Paris, people on the ground are isolated and struggle with access to the internet and other communications. Attacks by Boko Haram have disrupted connections further, meaning that there is an absence of an online community able to share news, photos and video reports of news as it unfolds.

Nonetheless, The Guardian noted:

But reports of the massacre were coming through and as the world’s media focused its attention on Paris, some questioned why events in Nigeria were almost ignored.


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How does the Catholic Church work? Miami Herald didn't get the memo

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How does the Catholic Church work? Miami Herald didn't get the memo

"Can't imagine where this piece goes, can you?" a faithful reader says in tipping us about a Miami Herald story. "At least they're clear in the headline."

They sure are. "Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski’s memo draws fire from marriage-equality groups," the headline says. Wenski, like other Catholic bishops, opposes same-sex marriage. So he's against "equality."

The story lede, too, reads like a DUN-dun-DUNNN!

After judges in Florida lifted the state’s ban on same-sex marriage this week, thousands of employees in Miami’s Catholic Archdiocese got a memo from their boss, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, that read as a warning: watch what you do or say, even after work or on social media, or you might lose your job.
Wenski’s note, after a brief reference to court decisions that he said “imposed the redefinition of marriage,” merely quoted from the employee handbook as a reminder to Church workers of longstanding policy: Every archdiocese employee, Catholic or non-Catholic, from ministerial leader to school teacher and custodian, is considered a Church representative and is expected to abide by Catholic teaching, and any conduct “inconsistent” with that can draw disciplinary action, up to termination.

As a frequent freelancer for the Florida Catholic newspaper -- and a former religion writer for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale -- I was naturally interested in the story. I've known Wenski since he was an earnest young priest ministering to Haitian immigrants in the 1980s. He has always struck me as a John Paul II-type Catholic: tough on doctrine but warm toward people. So the image of a ruthless overlord seemed out of place.

I also note that the story appears on the Herald's "Gay South Florida" page. So I have to ask, as the logo above says: "What is This?" News? Editorial? Commentary? If the former, why wasn’t it in sections A or B of the newspaper? If the latter, why isn't it marked as such?


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