Catholicism

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Click 'like' for stories on what it takes to pull together a hugely complex papal tour

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Click 'like' for stories on what it takes to pull together a hugely complex papal tour

Well here we are, smack in the middle of Papal-Visit-Coverage-Overload. But, to quote the omnipresent Pope Francis media soundbite (while shifting the context), "Who am I to judge?" So let's follow suit.

However, let's go small. You know, stay humble, in keeping with Francis' persona. Let's put the Big Picture stories aside for a few minutes (or however long it takes for you to read this post TO ITS END, if you please). Let's start with some questions.

Do you think the pontiff's expression of what it means to be Roman Catholic is being adequately presented by the mainstream news media? Are his statements  being forced through the prism of American politics? Do you think Francis is a breath of much-needed fresh air for the global Church he leads, or a good-hearted but naive and out-of-touch pastor?

Now put all that aside. There are plenty of other posts on GetReligion dealing with all that weighty stuff. Not to mention every other website, print publication and broadcast outlet that claims to produce journalism.

Instead, let's look at the nitty-gritty details of what allows this avalanche of hyperbolic coverage to take place. 

I'm speaking, of course, of the logistical miracle -- colloquially speaking, that is -- pulled off by the Vatican and the local church each time Francis, or any modern pope, leaves Rome to jet around the world.


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Did readers ask your Pope Francis questions during the Washington Post Q&A?

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As part of our ongoing efforts to gracefully point readers toward the work of former GetReligionistas, a task that we do with great enthusiasm, let me note that the religion-beat specialists at The Washington Post held an online forum today in which they took questions from readers about the upcoming Acela zone events involving Pope Francis.

One of the two, of course, is Sarah Pulliam Bailey, who was a scribe at this website for several years. Trivia note: Who can name the previous member of her family to write for GetReligion?

The long and the short of it is that Bailey and veteran religion-beat specialist Michelle Boorstein cannot (a) help readers sneak into the White House reception or (b) avoid the hassles of what is sure to be an amazingly complex several days in the already stressed mass-transit system of Washington, D.C.

However, I thought that GetReligion readers might want to know if participants in the Post forum asked some of the same questions that folks who frequent this site might want to have seen asked. So click here and check it out.

Meanwhile, here are a few sample questions:


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Pope Francis press watch: @JamesMartinSJ kicks off the week with #PapalGoofs

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If you are interested in (a) the Jesuits, (b) old-school Catholic liberalism, (c) humor, (d) religion news or (e) all of the above, then you really need to be following Father James Martin on Twitter -- @JamesMartinSJ. You are really going to want to jump on board this week to get his take on the @Pontifex visit to America's elite media corridor between Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Father Martin is well known for his popular books (such as "Between Heaven and Mirth" and "Jesus: A Pilgrimage"), for his analysis work at America magazine and as the official chaplain of the old "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. He is also, as you would expect, a skilled observer of religion-beat work in the American press.

This weekend, he got an early jump on the papal-coverage tsunami by starting a lively hashtag noting some early mistakes made by print and broadcast journalists in their coverage of the Pope Francis stop in Cuba -- #PapalGoofs. He was very gentle in this series of corrections, providing no URLs pointing directly to examples of these media mistakes. Surely some of these helpful tips were offered as preemptive strikes? 

Obviously, #PapalGoofs refers to goofs that journalists may or may not make while covering the pope, as opposed to goofs that observers believe have been made by the pope. Francis critics will need to start their own hashtag.

We will jump into those tweets in a moment -- Bobby Ross, Jr., style -- but first I want to note that many, or even most, of the mistakes illustrated in the first (let's hope he continues) #PapalGoofs stream are addressed in the online stylebook of the Religion Newswriters Association. You may want to bookmark that right here at ReligionStylebook.com. 

Now, here we go. And the last shall be first:


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Here come your think pieces on Pope Francis: Media want a 'pope of our own making?'

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While working on Anglican matters earlier this week -- as in Canterbury's call for a crucial, but rather unofficial global gathering about the future of the Anglican Communion -- I bumped into a rather interesting commentary by a Canadian Anglican about the mainstream press and, you guessed it, Pope Francis.

Needless to say, I expect that we will be running quite a few posts this week about mainstream coverage of the pope's visit to the Acela media zone in the urban American Northeast. I will probably include several "think pieces" about religion-news issues in that mix, even though we normally only point readers toward essays of that kind on weekends. 

This piece by Father Tim Perry of Ontario -- "Francis: A Pope of Our Own Making?" -- was actually written fairly early in the Francis media storm, but it still makes timeless points worth pondering right now. He starts off with the immediate assumption that the CONTENT of the Francis era will be quite different from that of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Let us attend.

While it is certainly the case that Francis is, and will be, different, I notice in these claims a curious pattern which has little to do with the three Popes, and much more to do with their coverage in the Western media. In short, the media quickly (subconsciously, I expect) decide on the “papal narrative,” and then over-report the stuff that fits and under-report the stuff that doesn’t.

Note the stress on underreporting the parts of the work of Pope Francis that do not fit the chosen media narrative -- such as this pope's remarkably consistent discussions of Confession, the work of Satan in the modern world and the centrality of family life in God's creation.


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New York Times writes evocative feature on who will meet Pope Francis in America

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When Pope Francis visits the United States next week, he will visit not only the high and mighty but the low and humble. Other mainstream media have often made that point. The New York Times proves it in its advance feature that ran yesterday -- with old-school enterprise reporting.

Fast-reading despite its nearly 1,600 words, the Times story offers both an overview and specifics. And it weaves them into prose that can be sweeping without getting flowery:

A papal visit is always an occasion of high ceremony and high-level politics. When Francis comes to the East Coast next week, he will, like his predecessors, visit the president and address the United Nations. He will pray with bishops. He will celebrate Mass before enormous crowds.
But to an unparalleled degree, this pope is making a point of spending time with people on the bottom rungs of American society: day laborers, refugees, the homeless, underprivileged schoolchildren and prisoners.
Like no pope before him, Francis is using the grand stage of his trip to the United States to demonstrate that the church exists to serve the poor and marginalized, and that this is the responsibility of all Catholics — whether pontiff or parishioner.

Many such articles would continue pretty much that same tone throughout -- that know-it-all, omniscient tone about this "people's pope." The Times doesn't; in this story, it fans out and talks to some of the 900 people who expect to meet the pope.

And it doesn't just say that Francis will visit inmates, for instance. It gives specifics on the offenses -- that Amanda Cortes, the subject of the lede, "worked for years as a phone-sex operator" and has been "awaiting trial in Philadelphia on charges that she brutally murdered her infant son." The article also doesn't just say that Francis will meet a refugee from Central America. It says the refugee "fled Honduras alone at age 14 and made his way through Guatemala and Mexico dodging armed gangs and riding atop freight trains."


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Here is a new federal data base reporters can mine for religion angles

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Here is a new federal data base reporters can mine for religion angles

On September 12th, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled its revamped College Scorecard (click here to see it), a trove of online data to guide parents and students on where to enroll that can also be a source of religion angles. The Obama Administration wisely scrapped its controversial plan for a college rating system, something of a mission impossible, and instead compiled hard numbers that citizens can judge for themselves.

The broad economic context was analyzed that same weekend by National Public Radio’s Adam Davidson, writing in The New York Times Magazine. For example, median income adjusted for inflation has remained nearly flat since 1974 while tuition at private universities has roughly tripled, and has quadrupled at public universities. Meanwhile those pricey college degrees have increased in importance for many careers. As the new Web site proclaims, “On average, college graduates earn $1 million more over their lifetimes than high school graduates.”

Much of this information was already available in those ubiquitous college guidebooks or the College Navigator site from the government’s National Center for Education Statistics. But the new site crunches Internal Revenue Service data to report graduates’ earnings 10 years out and how many are managing to repay student loans.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, the field’s journalistic bible, notes an important gap: Those newly added numbers cover only students who received federal loans or grants. Also, they lump together all students at an institution while earnings vary wildly depending on academic subject. The American Council on Education complains that the feds produced this setup without any review by outside experts.

No religious campuses are among the feds’ list of 23 schools commended for low cost leading to high incomes.


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Business Insider actually likes news stories about Scientology, religion and, yes, business

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I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find an unlikely source for religion news: Business Insider, a 6-year-old web site founded by former – and disgraced -- Wall Street research analyst Henry Blodget, who is its CEO and editor-in-chief.

The site covers celebrity news, technology and all kinds of business out of New York. We have previously reported on some of their work. Some of their content is aggregated from elsewhere but they also do original reporting and commentary. Recently, that’s included everything from President Barack Obama’s tweet in favor of the Muslim youth arrested in Irving, Texas, because he brought an object to school that supposedly looked like a bomb to the decline of organized religion in America.

But its specialty is a alternative religion that is very tough for any journalist to cover: Scientology. Business Insider gave a lot of PR to “Going Clear,” the HBO film (that premiered March 29) about Scientology and is still doing follow-ups. A recent sample:

As director Alex Gibney prepares for the release of his latest movie, “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” it’s hard to pass up a chance to talk to the Oscar winner about his other recent film, the HBO Scientology documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.”
At a recent screening of his Steve Jobs doc, Business Insider spoke with Gibney and asked him if he’s dealt with the same harassment by members of the Church of Scientology that former members of the church shown in the film say they have received.


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NPR look at Womenpriests offers some welcome balance (but is missing a key fact)

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With the arrival of Pope Francis in the U.S. Acela zone only days away, news consumers can expect to see a growing number of advance features about trends in the American church. Most of these will be linked to the now-familiar template that this pope is allegedly more doctrinally progressive than the American bishops and, thus, his visit provides a note a hope, somehow, for those who want to "reform" -- scare quotes intentional -- church doctrine.

With that in mind, it is important to note that a recent National Public Radio feature about the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement includes something very significant, a kind of journalistic landmark in this day and age.

This story contains actual material drawn from an interview with an authoritative human being -- a woman even! -- who speaks in defense of the ancient Christian tradition of an all-male priesthood. We'll come back to this shocking development in a moment.

As is the norm for these features, the NPR team opens with the story of a woman who, after decades of frustration in the church, decided to seek ordination in a movement that, by definition, exists outside the borders of canonical Roman Catholicism. Here are the crucial paragraphs:

Caryl Johnson calls herself a priest but technically she was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. That happened automatically in 2011 when she was ordained by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

The organization acknowledges that it's violating church requirements but says the ban on female priests is unjust. So far the group has ordained 188 women around the world.

For many Catholic women there's a big gap between what they believe and church dogma.


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Covering the new female Buddhist monks, which reminds AP of Catholic scandals

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When journalism professors discuss about the traditional American Model of the press, with its emphasis on accuracy, balance and a lack of editorializing, we often talk about how this model is demonstrated in the work of wire services.

In fact, in recent decades advocates of edgier, trendier news styles have often gone out of their way to contrast their "new journalism" philosophies with "mere" wire-service writing. You know, that old-school journalism with its emphasis on inverted-pyramid hard-news stories and a neutral, balanced approach to reporting that is supposed to serve the needs of readers in news sources across America and around the world?

But clearly, someone has been putting something in the water some folks are drinking in AP land, especially when it comes to coverage of religious and moral issues.

Consider this recent AP feature on the rise of female monastics or "bhikkhunis" in modern Buddhism. On the surface, the key journalistic issue here is whether AP editors will allow any voices in traditional Buddhism to speak in defense of their beliefs. Surprise! The answer is no. Only the advocates of women being allowed to serve as monks are interviewed. 

Then there is something else interesting going on in this story. Read carefully:

NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand (AP) -- On a rural road just after daybreak, villagers young and old kneel reverently before a single file of ochre-robed women, filling their bowls with rice, curries, fruits and sweets. In this country, it's a rare sight.
Thailand's top Buddhist authority bars women from becoming monks. They can only become white-cloaked nuns, who are routinely treated as domestic servants. Many here believe women are inferior beings who had better perform plenty of good deeds to ensure they will be reborn as men in their future lives.
Yet with the religion beset by lurid scandals, female monastics or "bhikkhunis" are emerging as a force for reform, not unlike activists in the Christian world seeking gender equality including ordination of women as priests in the Catholic Church.


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