Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
To all GetReligion readers who are part of the Western church, let me say, “Happy Easter.” I hope you are all having a meaningful day discussing the resurrection power of Barack Obama’s recent speech on racism and its impact on healing the American soul.
You know you’re a journalist who cares about religion when you based your NCAA Tournament Bracket picks on the religion of the school. I tend to use some combination of my head and my heart, which usually leads to utter disaster and ruin. A more successful way I’ve observed is to pick teams based on a hypothetical match-up between the two schools mascots.
The Easter Vigil, held tonight, is one of my favorite services of the church year. At my church, we gather outside, bless a new Paschal Candle, offer prayers for those who will be baptized, and proceed into the darkened sanctuary. The smell of lilies, the holding of the candle before the darkened altar, the lengthy Scripture readings. But my favorite part is when catechumens are baptized and others are confirmed or transferred into membership.
Today is Good Friday, the day when Christians commemorate the crucifixion and death of Jesus. It appears we made it through Holy Week without any media debunking of Jesus’ miracles. Maybe they got it out of their system with the whole Seven Deadly Sins silliness.
Once upon a time, reporters investigated the abortion industry. In 1978, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a week’s worth of stories about unsafe conditions at local clinics. Two reporters and several representatives from the Better Government Association posed undercover. The result: two clinics closed down, a doctor’s medical license was revoked, and a governor’s task force about the clinics’ practices was appointed.
I finally got around to reading Lauren Collins’ profile of Michelle Obama in the March 10 New Yorker. It’s sympathetic but no puff piece — packed full of information that isn’t necessarily flattering. Obama’s stump speech includes the idea that we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents, and so on.
There have been more than a few stories about Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor and pastor. A survey of broadcast media left me a tad unimpressed with the journalistic treatment. It seems news outlets are either exploiting the political rhetoric of Wright without any context or soft-peddling it to the extreme.
If you are part of a family that homeschools its children and is religious, The New York Times is your friend Sunday morning. The newspaper’s sports section has a nice news/feature story on last week’s national homeschool basketball tournament in Oklahoma City, and for once, the story doesn’t take the “zoo approach” toward homeschooling. (As a disclaimer, my 15-year-old sister played in this basketball tournament this past week.)
Good reporting generally involves some time, coordination and good footwork. Forget secret meetings in Washington, D.C., parking garages. Some of the best stories sit underneath reporter’s noses. A little creativity and thinking outside the box can reveal an aspect of a community that everyone appreciates regardless of which side of the issue they fall.
