Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The headline on a Tulsa World story — “Samaritan slain during a robbery” — caught the eye of a reader of ours named Charles. While Samaritan implies goodwill, charity and medical aid (e.g., Samaritan’s Purse, Good Samaritan laws and the British Army armored ambulance FV104 Samaritan), its more important use is in defining an ethnic group.
The National Football League’s 2008 regular season is underway, and once again the issue of religion is sliding through the cracks of the league’s public image control machine. For starters, The Indianapolis Star kicked off the 2008 season with a nice front-page feature on Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy as a run-up to that night’s season opener.
Maybe it’s appropriate to write about this on the morning of Sept. 11. How different would things be today if the terrorist attacks of six years ago had never happened?
Tucked away on page six of Sunday’s Washington Post was an update on the Republican Party’s efforts to increase its votes among Hispanics. The article focuses on Republican National Committee Chairman Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and his awkward position as the first Hispanic face of the Republican Party in an election cycle when the Hispanic vote has dropped off and a predominant number of the 2008 presidential candidates aren’t exactly looking to push policies that appeal to Hispanics.
News pieces on talk radio hosts are always interesting to read since there is usually an abundance of material with which to work. These people talk for a living, usually three or four hours a day, and thousands of people listen to them.
My first real working newspaper experience involved a small-town weekly in small-town Indiana. Two memories stand out from this experience more than seven years ago: The first was the work (participating in just about everything in putting the newspaper together) and the second was where I stayed.
The marital troubles between superstar couple Juanita Bynum and Bishop Thomas Weeks III have received little coverage beyond the straight news stories one would expect about people at this level of fame. There have been no New York Times think pieces or Newsweek analyses. This is not an easy story to cover.
My old new local paper, The Indianapolis Star, took the effort to send reporter Robert King to the suburbs of Chicago to cover the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention. Reporter Robert King’s initial story in Saturday’s newspaper surprised me a bit since it seemed somewhat random. Then I realized that the organization is based in another suburb, this one near Indianapolis.
There is an irony in the story of South Korean missionaries taken hostage by the Taliban. Dr. Leroy Huizenga sent us a note about this CNN story on the Taliban’s statement that the hostages will be released. Here’s the key section:
