Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
In the Oct. 20 edition of Newsweek, longtime film critic David Ansen criticizes director Oliver Stone for not showing greater depth in his depiction of George W. Bush. Fair enough, until one stumbles across this double-barrel shotgun blast of boorish stereotyping:
We rarely discuss opinion columns here, unless they contain content that might be helpful to mainstream reporters who are trying to cover religion news in the mainstream.
This post is not about Gov. Sarah Palin, even though it’s about the latest Newsweek cover story about her role in the current White House race and, should she be elected, the fall of Western Civilization.
In reviewing Bill Maher’s new film, Religulous, Stephen Holden of The New York Times has achieved an unusual thing: A written reflection that is even less informed than the film it discusses.
In the early days after the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the Republican ticket, the mainstream media ran quite a few stories wondering whether a female candidate with children should really be in such a position of authority and responsibility. Now they’ve decided to try really hard to get religious adherents to carry their water. The Associated Press chose one denomination — out of the many and various Christian groups that retain the traditional male-only clergy — to frame a story about whether females should be in secular power:
Just as Young Man Pulliam said last week, Deborah Howell devoted her most recent ombudsman column to the controversy over Pat Oliphant’s anti-Pentecostal cartoon that was published on WashingtonPost.com. Howell had noted in an earlier column that readers were right to complain over the cartoon. This weekend, she ran a lengthier piece about political cartooning in general.
Let’s just get right to it. This Los Angeles Times piece about the religious views of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is pretty much worthless.
Clearly, we are going to see a wave of coverage this weekend — perhaps peaking on Monday — focusing on the Alliance Defense Fund and the protests being planned under its “Pulpit Initiative.” As a guy with a degree in church-state studies, I am both fascinated and stunned by what is about to happen. It’s like preparing for a giant — yet scheduled — train wreck, and a strategic one, to boot.
More than any other story in this campaign cycle, Democratic outreach to evangelical Christians has some serious staying power. We have been told over and over that Democrats have ramped up their outreach to religious voters and we’ve been told all about every part of that effort.
