Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
To every thing there is a season, and Religion News Service this week chose to publish an excellent package of stories and sidebars — eight items in all — on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. (Here and here, Sarah earlier highlighted some of the coverage of the KJV milestone.)
OK, so Religion News Service has a provocative story on a provocative study that I’ve seen in a few papers. But the headlines that are running with the story are curious, to say the least.
If there is a list of GetReligion’s deadly journalism sins that affect religion coverage, one of the top items has to be this one: Don’t play the God card unless you intend to follow through and offer the reader some facts about the actual role that faith played in the story.
Since coverage of the Family Radio Network started heating up in January, Bobby’s been all over it. You can check out his installments here, here and here. Family Radio Network is the group that’s predicting the end of the world at 6 PM tomorrow.
We had an interesting discussion the other day in the comments pages after my post about coverage of the decision by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to approve the ordination of noncelibate gays, lesbians and bisexuals (and potentially cohabitating straights, as well). The discussion focused on the old, old, old Godbeat term “mainline Protestantism.”
Let’s face it. Your GetReligionistas have been doing what we do for quite some time now and, at this point, it takes a lot to shock us when it comes to journalists leaving religion-shaped holes in important stories.
Several dozen professors at Catholic colleges have written a blistering letter to Rep. John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, in advance of his commencement address at Catholic University on Saturday. The New York Times‘ Laurie Goodstein highlighted the letter and compared it to the outcry over Notre Dame University’s invitation to President Barack Obama last year.
Call me shallow, but I click on a story headlined “La Salle suspends professor who hired dancers.” Yeah, those kind of dancers. The Philly Inquirer reports:
