Douglas LeBlanc

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The uber jocks at Liberty U: debaters!

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Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post wrote a charming front-page story last week about the debate team at Liberty University — yes, the university founded by Jerry Falwell, everybody’s favorite “fundamentalist” whipping post. (Boorstein could have been one of the few journalists to use fundamentalist within the standards of AP; for several years Falwell published a magazine called Fundamentalist Journal. But she had a more interesting story to tell.)


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Would a Martian grant Diane Sawyer an interview?

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Imagine the better sense of goodwill that might now extend to The Passion of the Christ if Mel Gibson had talked even two hours per week in recent months with print journalists who know how to ask thoughtful questions. Diane Sawyer did about as well as one might hope for from a TV celebrity who’s famous for lobbing softball questions to people who are famous for being famous — or, in the case of Gibson, asking skeptical but poorly formed questions in an effort at being a tough interviewer.


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Blood, sweat & tears

Compared to Newsweek‘s cover story, Entertainment Weekly‘s “The Agony & the Ecstasy” is the very model of shoe-leather journalism. Author Jeff Jensen, denied access to a screening of The Passion of the Christ or interviews with director Mel Gibson and star Jim Caviezel, spoke with more than two dozen other people, both defenders and critics of Gibson’s film.


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West meets East in John Cleese

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Don Lattin of the San Francisco Chronicle must be the envy of every religion writer who loves the comedy of John Cleese. Lattin nabbed an interview with the Monty Python veteran before Cleese made a series of Bay Area fundraising appearances for Esalen, the Big Sur-based institute known for spreading Eastern thought in the West.


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