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So here is the lede on the Washington Post news feature about undrafted Washington Redskins offensive lineman Edwin Williams of the University of Maryland. He’s a long-shot to make the roster, but, well, he has cleared some big hurdles before. The religion angle is right up top, out there in the open.
With so many Roman Catholic bishops speaking out against Notre Dame University’s decision to honor President Barack Obama at this year’s commencement, we’ve seen quite a few stories in the mainstream press. When Mary Ann Glendon declined to receive the Laetare Medal in protest, we saw even more. But it’s been hard to put the story in perspective or context since there have been few stories looking at the overall scenario.
I can hardly believe it. Here inside the Beltway (and the elite media that are honorary members of the Beltway tribe), it is very rare to hear a person tagged with THE L-WORD.
Earlier this week, Elizabeth opened a discussion about what standards religion journalism blogs should be held to. Some mainstream reporters insert quite a bit of personal opinion while others retain their journalistic distance. Some use the blogs as a means of unloading information that couldn’t make it into brief stories. Many use a slightly more personal tone.
There are times when I really feel the pain of the brilliant folks who work with the polling and research division of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Though we’ve looked at a bit of the coverage related to Notre Dame University’s conferral of an honorary degree and speaking slot for President Barack Obama, there’s a lot that we haven’t highlighted. Mostly that’s because the stories are fairly straightforward or just local repetitions of previous stories. The Washington Times reported that, as of Friday, 46 bishops had publicly castigated Notre Dame:
As the battle of Notre Dame rages on, I have seen few, if any news reports that actually offer any hard information about what is happening on the campus.
Several years ago, when I submitted an interview article in the Evangelical Press Association’s Higher Goals Awards competition, my grim (and non-evangelical) judge dismissed the piece because it was a Q&A. Never mind that it was a friendly Q&A with Andrew Sullivan, soon after he wrote Virtually Normal, and appeared in the newspaper of the evangelical ministry Episcopalians United — not exactly Sullivan-worshipping territory.
