Bobby Ross Jr.

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Let's make an honest attempt to help Reuters with its biased, one-sided story on abortion and conscience

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Just for the fun of it, let’s pretend that Reuters is a student in a Journalism 101 course and not an international wire service that touts its dedication to upholding “freedom from bias in the gathering and dissemination of information and news.”

Let’s pretend that this beginning student turned in a story on a study concerning abortion and conscience laws.

Let’s pretend that the story — reporting only one side of a controversial issue — came from the student and not Reuters.

What might we tell the student?

Well, first let’s check out the lede:

(Reuters Health) - The vast majority of U.S. states have passed laws blocking civil lawsuits that might result from a doctor refusing to perform an abortion or certain other medical procedures because of religious beliefs, a new study shows.

The national survey found that 46 states had laws protecting medical professionals and institutions from being sued for harm to patients related to a refusal to provide services out of conscience, researchers report in JAMA.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

But then the story quotes a source who will interpret the news above:

“The biggest takeaway from this research is that while people are aware that conscience laws may impact a woman’s right to access reproductive services, they may not know that these laws also may impact access to the legal system when they are injured as a result of conscientious refusal,” said the study’s author, Nadia Sawicki, Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

“The majority of patients have no idea whether their local hospital is religiously affiliated,” Sawicki said. “So they don’t know if there are providers who can’t provide services. I hope this research brings to light the very real impact that conscience laws have not just on access to care but also on the right to legal recovery in cases where the patient is injured.”


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As Chick-fil-A capitulates, should press characterize Salvation Army and FCA as anti-LGBTQ?

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The headlines came fast and furious after Chick-fil-A revealed Monday that it will capitulate to the gay-rights activists who have attacked it for years.

The Babylon Bee declared that the fast-food chain, known for its mouth-watering chicken sandwiches, had traded its adoring Christian fans for an outraged mob that won’t be appeased until its every demand is met. Which is confusing because I thought the Bee was a satire website, not real news.

But seriously, Chick-fil-A’s decision is sure to upset many of its conservative Christian supporters who have appreciated the company’s emphasis on faith and family values, including closing on Sunday to allow employees time for rest and worship. (As far as I know, the chain hasn’t given into any demands that it start opening on the Lord’s Day.)

But the coverage in many mainstream news stories — and this is perhaps no surprise — fail to reflect that side of the story.

Instead, most of the headlines I’ve seen present this as a case of Chick-fil-A finally doing the right thing and distancing itself from “anti-LGBTQ” groups. Those groups are, of course, the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which if I understand correctly have committed the modern-day sin of believing in a traditional biblical view of marriage.

Among the headlines are this one from the Los Angeles Times (“Chick-fil-A says it won’t donate to anti-LGBTQ groups — at least for now”) and this one from CNN (“Chick-fil-A will no longer donate to anti-LGBTQ organizations”).

The question is: Should the press — if it wants to be fair and accurate — characterize the two Christian groups that way?


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Friday Five: Trump impeachment, Catholic doctrine, Paige Patterson, faith in Sin City, Chick-fil-A (yum)

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Greetings from one of my favorite places in the world!

I’m kidding (a little), but I’m typing this post in a Chick-fil-A parking lot near Dallas Love Field. In case you’re curious, yes, I enjoyed a delicious chicken biscuit for breakfast.

I’m in the Big D on reporting assignment for The Christian Chronicle and putting Friday Five together quickly before picking up a colleague at the airport.

Let’s dive right in:

1. Religion story of the week: In my hurry to post, I hope I’m not missing a major story that should go in this space.

But for me personally, the story of the week has to be Emma Green’s piece for The Atlantic on Iowa voters who both support President Donald Trump’s policies and — get this — wouldn’t mind seeing him impeached.

Yes, there’s a strong religion angle, as I explained in a post earlier this week. Check it out.


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Outspoken but quiet, conservative but progressive: Media profile U.S. Catholic bishops' Latino leader

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Here’s a surefire way to make headlines: Do something significant — and this part is crucial — do it for the first time.

Such was the case with this week’s election of Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles as U.S. Catholic bishops’ first Latino leader.

Prominent religion writers — including the New York Times’ Elizabeth Dias, the Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer and Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins — were on the scene for the milestone vote. It helps, of course, that the bishops met in Baltimore, an easy drive or train ride from those journalists’ base in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Other familiar names — The Associated Press’ David Crary, the Wall Street Journal’s Ian Lovett and the Los Angeles Times’ Sarah Parvini — covered the news remotely (Crary from New York and Lovett and Parvini from Los Angeles). The WSJ piece was more of a brief (four short paragraphs), but the financial newspaper at least acknowledged Gomez’s election.

Before analyzing all the coverage, I’ll note that I first became familiar with Gomez when he became archbishop of San Antonio in 2005. Based in Dallas, I covered religion for AP at the time. So I traveled to San Antonio to meet Gomez and do a story on him stepping into a new role as the leading Hispanic cleric in the U.S.

I remember him being friendly but not overly talkative. These were my favorite two paragraphs of the piece that I wrote for AP’s national wire:

Gomez showed that sense of humor as he recalled how he started attending daily Mass as a high school student in Monterrey. A sign of a future archbishop’s deep commitment to the church? Perhaps. But it was also a good way to get the car keys.

“The only way that my dad let me drive was to go to Mass,” Gomez said with a chuckle.

I noticed a few common themes in this week’s stories.


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Defying stereotypes: The Atlantic's Emma Green paints a nuanced portrait of Trump voters in Iowa

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You’ve heard the same stat over and over: 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

That is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Yet in the three years since Trump’s shocking upset of Hillary Clinton, many in the mainstream press have pushed the idea that all white evangelicals — well, 81 percent of them anyway — love Trump and everything about him.

In typical stories along those lines, there’s no room for nuance and no room for white evangelicals to have complicated feelings about Trump. It’s as if the reporters conveniently forget that there was another candidate on the ballot. A candidate who, like Trump, was one of the most unpopular major party nominees in history. And who, unlike Trump, clashed with many white evangelicals on issues such as abortion.

Given the preponderance of the aforementioned narrative, it’s especially nice when an award-winning Godbeat pro like The Atlantic’s Emma Green produces a piece — as she is so apt to do — that defies the worn-out stereotypes and digs deeper on the familiar stat so often repeated.

I’m talking about Green’s report out of Iowa this week titled “They Support Trump. They Want Him Impeached.”

The headline is partly clickbait and partly a mostly accurate assessment of Green’s report, which opens with this compelling scene:

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — The small towns that run across Iowa’s northwest corner form a district that is as politically red as it gets in America. There are vast stretches of farmland; public-school football teams pray together after games; Christian music regularly plays over the loudspeakers in shopping centers. Voters here in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District have sent Representative Steve King back to Washington every year since 2003, and 81 percent of those in Sioux County, near the district’s northwest corner, chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, a higher pro-Trump percentage than anywhere else in the state.

Still, even some of these hard-core Republicans wouldn’t mind if Trump were impeached before Election Day 2020.

Polling suggests the president’s base nationwide is firmly opposed to impeachment, and that people’s opinions on the inquiry are split neatly along partisan lines. But at least in Sioux Center, where Republican presidential candidates regularly make pit stops during the primary season, some conservatives still feel ambivalent about Trump’s policies and character. In my conversations around town, people were skeptical that the impeachment inquiry would go anywhere, but they smiled ruefully at the fantasy of a President Mike Pence and a clean slate of Republican candidates in 2020. While voters in this area clearly preferred Trump over Clinton in 2016 and told me they have appreciated some of his work over the past two and a half years, there’s a difference between defending Trump and supporting him. However skeptical people here may be of Democrats’ motives and the likelihood of success, impeachment offers a distant dream of a return to Republican “politics as usual.”


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A reader asks: Is there a religion ghost in story of man arrested for popping 'Baby Trump' balloon?

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“Baby Trump” met his demise in Alabama over the weekend. Not for the first time, though.

Who, some might ask, is Baby Trump?

According to Heavy.com, he’s an “iconic” balloon that is “widely known as a symbol to protest the President.” Evidently, not everybody is a fan of Baby Trump. And perhaps, just perhaps, a holy ghost haunts the latest news involving the big balloon. More on that in a moment.

First, though, let’s meet Hoyt Hutchinson. ABC News reports:

A few dozen people were gathered in Monnish Park protesting the president's visit to the Alabama-LSU football game a half-mile away and holding various anti-Trump signs when a disapproving man approached the helium-balloon with a knife and slashed an 8-foot-long gash in its back. There were still two hours to kickoff in the college town when "Baby Trump" quickly deflated out and the balloon-stabbing suspect attempted to flee the scene, organizers said.

Tuscaloosa police said in a statement that officers witnessed the incident which led them to arrest Hoyt Deau Hutchinson, 32, and charge him with felony first degree criminal mischief. He was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail and held on a $2,500 bond. The slashing appears to have been premeditated as Hutchinson posted a Facebook Live video just hours before the incident saying he was "going down [there] to make a scene ... I'm shaking I'm so mad right now," he said. "I'm fixin’ to pop this balloon, without a doubt."

The Alabama Media Group adds more details to the story today, noting that the Baby Trump stabber gave a radio interview in which he cast his action as a case of “good vs. evil.”

“Seems like a ghost or two here,” said a reader who shared that link with GetReligion. “What church does he go to? What do they think?”


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Friday Five: Mexico massacre, German Catholics, Christian contraception, John Crist, wild shot

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Welcome to another edition of the Friday Five.

Usually, I offer a bit of extra information or at least a little wit before getting to the point.

But this week I’ll confess that I’ve got nothing, so let’s dive right in:

1. Religion story of the week: The Los Angeles Times’ Jaweed Kaleem was among those who reported on the massacre of a large Mormon clan in Mexico.

Also on the story: New York Times religion writer Elizabeth Dias, who contributed to coverage here and here.

Elsewhere, The Associated Press noted that the slayings highlighted confusion over Mormon groups. The Washington Post explained “How Mexico’s cartel wars shattered American Mormons’ wary peace,” and the Wall Street Journal reported on Mormon families gathering to mourn those killed.

Here’s one more: A stunning New York Times feature on the details of the attack itself and on-the-scene reporting about the families wrestling with grief and the details of how to respond. The reporting is deep and detailed — except that there’s no real sense of why these believers are in Mexico and what separates them from mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints life.

That seems like a rather important subject, in this case.

2. Most popular GetReligion post: Editor Terry Mattingly has our No. 1 commentary of the week, headlined “Washington Post: Catholics should follow Germany's gospel when seeking future growth.”

No, tmatt was not a fan of the Post’s very one-sided story:


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Los Angeles Times writes nice story about jail chaplains, with a few eyebrow-raising word choices

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There’s a lot to like about a recent Los Angeles Times feature on jail chaplains.

But there also are strong hints of holy ghosts as well as a few eyebrow-raising word choices. I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

Let’s start, though, with the positive: This is an in-depth piece that offers a helpful primer on the state of jail chaplaincy in Los Angeles and even quotes experts such as Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The specific Times angle is that some religious groups have enough chaplains — all volunteers — while others, including Jewish and Muslim groups, have a shortage.

The narrative-style lede sets the scene:

There are days when Rabbi Avivah Erlick sits in her car outside Men’s Central Jail, too afraid to go in. She’s counseled hundreds of inmates, but sometimes she arrives downtown only to drive back home, not ready to face the sudden lockdowns, the stale air and the stories about violence and loneliness.

When she does go in, Erlick feels overwhelmingly behind. She used to be a part-time jail chaplain supported by a grant from the Jewish Federation, but it wasn’t renewed. Now she volunteers whenever she can. She spends hours updating her list of inmates to visit, which includes dozens more than she has time to see.

The work is too important to stay away.

“I listen — I’m the only person who does,” she said. “I went into chaplaincy because I feel so drawn to help people in crisis.”

Then comes this generalization:

The chaplains in the Los Angeles County jails, some of whom were once behind bars themselves, are united by a simple mission: remind inmates of their humanity. It’s a job they often do in one-on-one visits. They’ll tell jokes, share a prayer, teach a religious text, or simply listen.

I’m torn on that description of the simple mission: “remind inmates of their humanity.” I suspect a number of the chaplains — particularly the evangelical Christian ones — would be more specific and say their goal is to save the inmates’ souls.


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Bible study during school time? Tennessee paper explores pros and cons — and what Satanists think

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is back in the news.

But this time the story is actually pretty good.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports on a pilot program in a local school district that allows elementary-age children to leave their public school — with parental permission — to study the Bible at a church.

The newspaper’s lede covers the high points before the story delves into more specific details:

Once a month, some 70 students from Sterchi Elementary miss an hour of school to go to a nearby evangelistic church for a Bible lesson.

Third- through fifth-graders miss music, art or library. Second-graders miss language arts.

If parents sign a release, state law allows this — as long as the school district’s Board of Education has approved a policy.

Knox County's school board hasn’t approved a policy. Sterchi’s Bible Release Time program, approved earlier this year, is intended to be a “pilot” that board members could observe to determine if they want a countywide policy.

The Sterchi program has raised a lot of questions — and heated voices — in Knox County about the separation of church and government. That includes a slew of letters from parents to school board members, and one social media post from a Satanic organization.

That description up high of the church as “evangelistic” made me wonder if perhaps the reporter meant “evangelical.” At the same time, a church teaching the Bible to public school students no doubt would fall under the heading of “evangelistic.”

Later, the News Sentinel notes that the church didn’t return its calls, so maybe it’s not surprising that the information provided about the church seems rather sketchy. A few references are made to Christian parents complaining that the church doesn’t share their brand of beliefs.


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