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If you are a consumer who truly loves books (and libraries, and news magazines, etc.), that recent A1 Washington Post news feature on the death dive of the Borders bookstore chain was a real eyeopener. Grab a box of tissues and read it, including this shot of reality:
Remember Father Alberto Cutie, a.k.a. “Father Oprah”? He was the, ahem, “hunky” and popular Miami priest and media personality who was caught in some rather compromising tabloid photos gallivanting on a beach with one of his parishioners. It was a big scandal at the time — it even made the New York Times. Well, guess what — he’s back!
Several publications recently published lists of their top stories of 2010, but The Economist tries to predict next year’s trends with its “The World in 2011″ edition. You can already see this trend coming from upcoming books: marking the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. Here’s The Economist‘s prediction: “Prepare for a celebration of biblical proportions.”
As regular GetReligion readers know, I spent several years early in my career on the copy desk of a daily newspaper and I have remained rather obsessed with issue of Associated Press style ever since — especially questions about (surprise) religion.
During the press events for the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson said one wise thing over and over when talking about the legacy of writer J.R.R. Tolkien. In a session in which I was present, he put it this way:
One of the things that young reporters struggle with is the realization that there is no one perfect way to approach a given news story. In fact, different publications my approach the same story in radically different ways.
It’s no secret that the mainstream media have struggled to understand what’s happening politically in the country right now. You could say they’re more Stewart/Colbert than Tea Party. They’re just not terribly well suited to understand or explain how, exactly, the Republicans likely are about to retake the House of Representatives.
A columnist at the Wall Street Journal used to regularly feature snippets from sports columnists who fancied themselves political pundits. You’d be expecting a nice piece on the last golf tournament but you’d instead get some tirade about the Iraq War or how awful President Bush is.
