Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
There seem to be two dominant story lines coming out of the Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Brazil that began Wednesday. One is that the Pope is facing the lingering spectre of his longtime nemesis — Marxist-inspired social liberation within the Catholic Church — and the other is the Protestant challenge from Pentecostals.
One of the more nagging questions about the mass killings at Virginia Tech is how the parents of killer Seung-Hui Cho related to him. Their earlier statement to the public clearly expressed agony about their son’s rampage. The Washington Post‘s front-page story from Sunday fills in more blanks, especially regarding the killer’s mother, Hyang In Cho.
Religion reporter Alan Cooperman had a very interesting article in Saturday’s Washington Post. I enjoy Cooperman’s stories. His smooth, clear writing style is easy to read and digest. Anyway, he uses the hook of a Missouri State University instructor requiring students to write letters urging state legislators to support adoptions by same-sex couples. One of the students, Emily Brooker, objected on religious grounds and the school charged her with discriminating against gays.
If Russell Chandler, retired from the Los Angeles Times, is one of the gold-standard names in traditional religion-beat work, then our second subject represents a much edgier style of reporting from the post-1960s alternative press. The work being done by Julie Lyons in her Bible Girl columns at the Dallas Observer represents a kind of neo-European, advocacy version of the Godbeat in modern niche media.
Remember that wonderful headline that Mollie hit us with the other day: “You mean Mormons aren’t all Republicans?”
Part of me thought, the minute I saw this Indiana-based story, “You know, I should have young master Daniel Pulliam write about this one, seeing as how he is our authority on all things Hoosier.”
Everyone needs heroes. Back in 1980 or so, when I was trying to break into religion reporting, I decided that one of my journalistic heroes was going to be Russell Chandler of the Los Angeles Times.
News coverage of the Veterans Affairs Department’s decision to include the Wiccan pentacle on a list of approved religious symbols that can be engraved on the headstones of veterans has been high on the politics and low on the religion. The story comes down to a classic case of religious freedom. Unfortunately, the story has been swept up by politics when it is not clear that it was directly related to politics.
Every now and then, you read a feature story in a major newspaper and, as you read and read, you think to yourself: “OK, at some point, the reporter just has to raise a moral or religious question about all of this. Don’t they?”
