Bobby Ross Jr.

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No ghosts here: Powerful, insightful profile of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley a must read

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Forgive me for turning into a fanboy.

But in case you hadn't figured it out, I've really enjoyed Jennifer Berry Hawes' coverage of the Charleston, S.C., church shooting.

Once again, I'm here to praise the Pulitzer Prize winner's excellent journalism — with strong religion ties — for The Post and Courier, Charleston's daily newspaper.

Of course, I'm not the only one with kind words for Hawes' Sunday profile of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

As the best ledes do, this one immediately puts the reader in the middle of the gripping action:

The horror began with a late-night text from her chief of staff, then a phone call from the State Law Enforcement Division’s head. There had been a shooting at a Charleston church.
It was Sen. Clementa Pinckney’s church. Multiple people had been shot.
Gov. Nikki Haley quickly hung up.
“And then I called Sen. Pinckney.” She left a voice mail he never heard. “This is Nikki. I’ve heard about the shooting. I’m sending my full SLED team down there. Call me.”
Throughout the night, until 4:30 a.m., she spoke with SLED Chief Mark Keel as sickening details emerged. Each call “was one more kick in the gut,” she recalls.


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In Chattanooga, journalists ask the obvious question: What role did gunman's religion play?

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The banner headline in today's Chattanooga Times Free Press tells the story:

'Nightmare For Our City'

Here we go again: One more mass shooting. One more devastated community. One more dead gunman who leaves a plethora of unanswered questions in his wake.

Right beside its main story on the four U.S. Marines killed in Thursday's rampage, a Times Free Press sidebar asks the obvious question:

Who was Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez?

But at this point, even the exact spelling of Abdulazeez's first name is unclear: Federal authorities and records gave at least four variations, as The Associated Press reported. While the Times Free Press goes with "Mohammad," and AP uses "Muhammad," The New York Times identifies him as "Mohammod."

The spelling issue aside, however, the suspect's Muslim background and potential ties to Islamic extremists is drawing major media attention, and rightfully so. Much of that coverage relies on a blog tied to Abdulazeez.

This is the headline on a Washington Post report:


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Religious freedom buffet: Los Angeles Times scattershoots on same-sex marriage decision

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Ho-hum.

That's my basic reaction to a Los Angeles Times story this week on same-sex marriage and religious freedom.

This is one of those stories that — in roughly 1,200 words — manages to cover a lot of ground while really covering no ground at all. It's the journalistic equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet. You pile your plate full of everything and can't really concentrate on anything. And your stomach aches afterward.

Let's start at the top:

For some, the Supreme Court's decision declaring that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry put the free exercise of religion in danger.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was among them.
"Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage — when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples," Roberts wrote in a dissent joined by three other justices.
He also perceived a threat to tax exemptions for religious schools and colleges that oppose same-sex marriage. "Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today," Roberts said.
On the other hand, the same high court has expanded religious liberties. Just a year ago, the court's majority ruled for the Christian owners of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, holding they had a religious-freedom right to refuse to pay for certain contraceptives mandated by the Obama administration under the federal Affordable Care Act.


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Aborted baby parts for sale: Did journalists drag their feet on Planned Parenthood story?

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By now, you've seen THE VIDEO.

It's been the talk of social media, particularly among pro-life advocates, for a full day now.

Given the subject matter, it's no surprise that GetReligionista emeritus Mollie Hemingway — now a senior editor with The Federalist — has been all over the issue.

Six hours after the video began making waves, Mollie wrote at The Federalist:

This is a story that requires thoughtful and substantive coverage. That the media are beginning by ignoring it is not a good sign that they have learned a single lesson from crapping the bed with their coverage of the monstrous abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.

But can "thoughtful and substantive coverage" be produced immediately? While understanding Mollie's frustration, I sympathize, too, with the perspective of another former GetReligionista: Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

On Twitter, Sarah made the case that, hey, real reporting takes a little time:


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Concerning Hispanic evangelicals and the death penalty: Dig a little deeper, please

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In my days covering the state prison system for The Oklahoman, I witnessed a handful of executions — some high profile and others not.

Given that experience, headlines concerning public support for — and opposition to — capital punishment always catch my attention.

A front-page story by the Houston Chronicle this week tackled a compelling angle: Hispanic evangelicals forming what the newspaper described as a "new front in the battle against the death penalty."

The Chronicle's lede:

For years, Samuel Rodriguez, a California Assemblies of God preacher, accepted both views as gospel truth.

But then came nagging doubts about capital punishment's effectiveness in deterring crime and a growing belief that "African-Americans and Hispanics disproportionately are on the wrong end of the injection." After a decade of soul-searching, Rodriguez reached a startling conclusion: To truly be pro-life means to support life "inside and outside the womb."

Today, Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the nation's largest Hispanic evangelical group, has become emblematic of a new wave of conservative Christians rallying opposition to the death penalty. Rodriguez fought to spare
the life of schizophrenic Texas double-killer Scott Panetti — a federal court stayed the execution — and, in a Time magazine essay, decried a botched Oklahoma execution.

In March, a second Hispanic group, the New York-based National Latino Evangelical Coalition, became the first evangelical association to call for capital punishment's end.

"The idea that the evangelical church gives rubber-stamp approval to the death penalty is no longer applicable," Rodriguez said. "More and more, Bible-believing individuals, theological conservatives, Christ's followers in America, are beginning to sway away from capital punishment."

Keep reading, and the Houston newspaper makes the case that Hispanic evangelicals "are entering a contentious debate that for decades has split American believers":


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A reader asks: Where can I find unbiased journalism? Here's my answer ...

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post questioning an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that the Southern Baptist Convention declared "spiritual warfare" on same-sex marriage.

In a comment in response to that post, GetReligion reader Trey Finley said the coverage didn't surprise him:

Bad journalism? Probably. I'd appreciate your suggestions, Bobby, on where to find unbiased and non-leading journalism today. I don't know where to find it.

I responded that Finley's question deserved its own post. And I asked him to stay tuned.

As I reflected on his question, I tried to think of specific news sources I'd recommend. But the more I thought about it, I realized I trust certain journalists at certain publications and websites — but not necessarily their entire media organizations — to report in an unbiased and non-leading way. 

For example, if I see a Sarah Pulliam Bailey byline on a Washington Post story or a Daniel Burke byline on a CNN story or an Adelle Banks byline on a Religion News Service story, I'm generally confident the story will be accurate, fair to all sides and provide relevant context. 

But heaven knows I don't endorse -- or even believe -- everything I read at the Post, CNN or RNS.

In fact, a big part of GetReligion's mission is helping educate ordinary readers so they can recognize quality journalism themselves.


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Thank you, Los Angeles Times, for delving deeper into that Ten Commandments case in Oklahoma

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Twenty-plus years ago, the first major federal trial I covered for The Oklahoman involved a dispute over a religious symbol on an affluent Oklahoma City suburb's official seal.

This was the lede for the May 25, 1994, front-page story that I wrote:

Residents' perception of a Christian cross on Edmond's city seal emerged as a key issue Tuesday in the first day of a federal trial to determine the symbol's fate.
A Unitarian-Universalist minister and three other plaintiffs testified passionately about their disdain for the cross on the seal, which they contend reduces non-Christians to second-class citizens.
But defense attorney Burns Hargis pressed plaintiffs about their backgrounds, questioning whether they could be considered "average citizens. " Hargis, representing the city, sought to portray the Rev. Wayne Robinson and other plaintiffs as overly sensitive.
Robinson, minister of Edmond's Channing Unitarian-Universalist Church, found his background and his motives under particular scrutiny.
Hargis questioned Robinson about his "love-hate relationship with Christianity," noting the minister's Christian background as a Pentecostal Holiness and Methodist minister who once served in a leading role under Oral Roberts.
"You used to love it, now you really hate it? " Hargis said, in reference to Robinson's views on Christianity.
U.S. District Judge David Russell is hearing the case.

After the trial, the district court judge ruled that the seal depicted the city's history and did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishing a religion. However, an appeals court later overturned that ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, forcing the removal of the cross.

I was reminded of that case in reading a welcomed Los Angeles Times follow-up on a more recent court decision in Oklahoma: 


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'God is my gun,' says woman quoted in superficial Reuters story on church security

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This was the headline on a recent Reuters story on church security in America, post-Charleston:

In some U.S. churches, guns are the answer to a prayer

But are guns really an answer to a prayer?

Or does that title foreshadow a superficial, cliché treatment of the subject? 

You decide:

JACKSON, Mich. —The Sunday service was winding down, but before it ended, Bishop Ira Combs led the congregation of 300 at the Greater Bible Way Temple in prayer. The shootings that killed nine people in a Charleston church could not happen here, he reassured his flock.
"If they had security, the assailant would not have been able to reload," Combs declared. "All of us here are not going to turn the other cheek while you shoot us."
As he preached, Combs was flanked by a man on each side of the pulpit, each armed with handguns beneath their suit coats. Other members of the church's security team were scattered among the crowd. Congregants did not know who was armed and who was not — an undercover approach that is part of the security plan.
"We aren't looking to engage people in violence, but we are going to practice law enforcement," Combs told Reuters before the service. "And we are going to interdict if someone comes in with a weapon."


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Louisville Courier-Journal offers a case study in biased media coverage of same-sex marriage

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Here at GetReligion, we advocate a traditional American model of journalism — one that relies on a fair, impartial reporting of news.

Last week, I highlighted the difficulty that some media organizations experienced applying that concept to the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in favor of same-sex marriage:

After I wrote that post, I came across a Louisville Courier-Journal story that epitomizes the biased nature of many reports on this subject.

Let's start at the top of this puffy profile of a Baptist pastor who supports same-sex marriage:

The Rev. Jason Crosby, a controversial local Baptist gay rights advocate whose church was kicked out of the Kentucky Southern Baptist Convention last year for agreeing to officiate same-sex marriages, spent the weekend celebrating.
"This has been more of an emotional journey for me than I'd ever have imagined," said the Rev. Jason Crosby, the pastor of Crescent Hill Baptist Church, one hour after the Supreme Court ruled Friday in the favor of allowing same-sex couples to legally marry across the country. "I can't even begin to imagine how elated people must be feeling today, after the grueling times they've endured."
Crosby said four couples got in touch with him — within minutes of the historic ruling Friday — to ask if they could marry in the church, 2800 Frankfort Ave. "I'm thrilled we've opened the door to more joy. We've opened the floodgates to celebrate the love that people find in different ways."
Crescent Hill is one of two Baptist churches in Louisville that were dismissed from the Southern Baptist Convention for their welcoming position on homosexuals last year. Constant in his position despite the rejection and hatred from his own churchmen, Crosby started conducting gay marriages last November.

Did you catch that last sentence?: Constant in his position despite the rejection and hatred from his own churchmen ...

Hatred? 


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