Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
How far should the press go to acculturate their overseas news stories — to make them palatable to an American audience while also being true to the underlying facts? NPR Morning Edition reporter Lauren Frayer had a great story last week that “gets religion”, but also brought this issue to mind.
Above all â Allah is our goal… The shari’a, then the shari’a, and finally, the shari’a. This nation will enjoy blessing and revival only through the Islamic shari’a. I take an oath before Allah and before you all that regardless of the actual text [of the constitution]… Allah willing, the text will truly reflect [the shari'a], as will be agreed upon by the Egyptian people, by the Islamic scholars, and by legal and constitutional experts…
âTruth is true only within a certain period of time,â observed a spokesman for the Burma’s military junta in the aftermath of that countryâs 1988 pro-democracy uprising, reported Emma Larkin in her 2004 political travelogue-cum-biography âFinding George Orwell in Burmaâ. âWhat was truth once may no longer be truth after many months or years.â
In this weekâs podcast Issues Etc. host Todd Wilkin and I discussed three recent GetReligion stories: Doggie Masses offered by Inclusive Catholics in Australia, one-sided reporting on Missouri’s Amendment 2, and the parole of Michelle Martin.
In his 2008 Atlantic review of Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite Christopher Hitchens retells a “sour old joke” from the Nazi era.
The Feast of the Assumption of Mary â August 15 â will be marked by the Catholic Church in France by the revival of prayers for the eldest daughter of the Church (France).
I write with some disappointment about the report from the Religion News Service (RNS) on Missouri’s Public Prayer Amendment (Amendment 2). Entitled “Missouri prayer amendment passes” in the version printed in USA Today, the article is rather thin. It does not provide quotes from the amendment but seeks to summarize its language.
Can a dog be a good Catholic? Must a dog be baptized before it receives Holy Communion? For that matter, can a dog be saved? Will all dogs go to heaven, or does Laika’s 1957 launch mark the apogee of canine celestial progress?
Finding the line between sensation and responsible reporting can be a difficult task. There are times when the subject of a news story will say something outrageous that causes a reporter to lay down his pen and ask, “Did you really mean that?” Over the top quotes can make a story pop — providing better placement in a newspaper and a brief “buzz” for the story. It can also distort the narrative, changing the story from the issues under discussion to comments about the issues.
