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 Associated Press’ Patrick Condon has a story with a great headline — “Atheists at Christmas: Eat, drink and be wary.” It’s all about how uncomfortable the Christmas season is for some avid non-believers and is a good follow-up to Eric Gorski’s recent piece on atheist groups on college campuses. Here’s how the Atheists at Christmas story begins:
A bill being debated in the Uganda legislature would execute homosexuals who are infected with HIV. Here’s a bit from an Associated Press story on the sad matter:
Back in 2004, a Christian student group was denied recognition at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law because it required its officers and voting members to uphold certain Christian teachings. The school said that the group couldn’t discriminate on the basis of religious belief.
Some of my favorite headlines from The Onion are ones about your average Joe as if it’s a big deal, like “Area Man Consults Internet Whenever Possible” or “Local Girlfriend Always Wants To Do Stuff.”
Based on what you know about religion, news and religion in the news, do you think that, when meditating on Adam Lambert’s performance on the American Music Awards, cultural conservatives in this great nation of ours are upset about:
Each semester, in the very first class session at the Washington Journalism Center, I have my students read the New York Times self-study document from 2005 entitled “Preserving Our Readers’ Trust (.pdf).” Then I require them to carefully read your response, “Assuring Our Credibility (.pdf).”
Yesterday, the National Institutes of Health announced 13 new embryonic stem cell lines would be added to the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry. President Barack Obama received a lot of coverage for his decision to change President George W. Bush’s policy limiting federal funding for embryonic-destroying stem cell research. The media coverage earlier this year was pretty bad on that point. To review, prior to President Bush there were no federally funded lines. Bush began federal funding of the research — controversial because it destroys human embryos — but ordered that only those lines already in existence prior to August 2001 were eligible for said funding.
Gaurdian reporter Chris McGreal has written a subtle and finely nuanced piece headlined “Religious right launches fresh assault on US abortion rights.”
Every now and then, the box-office prophets in Hollywood are shocked, shocked to discover that large numbers of Americans like to buy tickets to movies that are funny, clean, well-crafted and capable of tugging at a heart-string or two. There’s another tricky little subject hiding in there that many media people just don’t get, but we’ll look at that a bit later.
