Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Let me jump in here with a quick follow-up on my recent post about press coverage of the Democratic Party platform’s new language on issues linked to abortion and the sanctity of life.
For how sex-obsessed our culture is, it’s surprising how little we talk about the spiritual side effects of procreation and contraception. The way we view our bodies and the manner in which we approach sex are some of the most profound theological questions we face in our daily lives, and yet it doesn’t seem to make it into mainstream media much. There are exceptions of course.
Most of the California print media covered the state’s Court of Appeal’s decision to reverse itself regarding the legality of home schooling under the state’s laws. In general the coverage was fairly spotty.
An excellent example of journalism properly covering the issue of religion in an athlete’s life is this Runner’s World profile of Olympic marathoner Ryan Hall. I know many out there are skeptical when super rich athletes and coaches say something about how they thank the Lord for this or that or give God the honor, but bear with me because this story is about none of those things.
Most people complain about how long this campaign season has been, but I’ve loved every minute of it. The primaries, the world tour, the advertisements — I can’t get enough.
At all costs avoid the Associated Press’s coverage of the lawsuit against Victoria Osteen. The article the AP has distributed is full of examples of poor journalistic practices that damage the reputation of the profession.
Yesterday we looked at that Pew report which criticized the mainstream media’s coverage of Obama’s speech on race and religion. The report claimed that the media got the race angle at the expense of the religion angle.
We never run out of stories to analyze here, but election years seem produce even more media coverage of religion than normal. Considering mainstream media’s trouble with getting religion, I am confident the religion beat would be doomed if not for the media’s great love of politics and the prominent role that religion plays in political fortunes.
