Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
This may seem like a strange thing to do, but I want to encourage readers who are working journalists to do something after they have read Doug’s latest post on music tends in the church. Google the following words and then hang on — “worship wars.”
John Allen Jr., Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter since 2000, delivered a speech earlier this month that humorously took apart five myths about the institution he covers. Candy Czernicki reported on Allen’s speech for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s Catholic Herald. Here are the five myths, with quotes from Czernicki’s report.
“Truth is, I’ve been following this movie very closely for professional and personal reasons. My wife is an Presbyterian minister, a hospital chaplain (and, I might add, among the numbers who will not see this movie, though not for the reasons I write about. I have seen the film and will likely see it again.)
It is always interesting to see what newpapers do with the counter protestors at abortion-related marches. The rule of thumb at pro-abortion-rights marches is that reporters lock in on the strangest anti-abortion activists they can find. The standard picture is of a row of screaming men in hard hats or, perhaps, a silent line of appropriately dressed priests and pastors.
One of the most interesting news angles in the coverage leading up to yesterday’s pro-abortion-rights march in Washington, D.C., concerned the Rev. Ignacio Castuera, the United Methodist pastor who is now the official chaplain to Planned Parenthood. In a Q&A interview with the Dallas Morning News, Castuera stated openly what many oldline Protestant leaders say behind the scenes. They believe they can make a spiritual case for the “choice” options in the sexual revolution. Why is that?
What does the word “holocaust” mean? And does the meaning change when that first letter is capitalized and it becomes “Holocaust”?
Veteran media critic David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times forced himself to listen to a full cycle of Air America the other day and he decided that the big news is how the liberal talk-radio franchise handles — religion. Well, that and sex. You may have noticed, however, that issues of sexual morality often play a major role in religion news reports these days.
When I was working as a full-time religion-beat reporter, the phrase I most dreaded hearing my editor say was, “I think we’ve got to do a trend story on that.” Well, that and the dreaded, “There’s a call from a furious (insert denominational name here) minister on line one.”
