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Gentle readers, I am going to have to ask your patience for a few minutes as the former copy editor in me rages a bit. However, I have no idea what is going on at the moment at The New York Times‘ copy desk when it comes to handling the tricky issue of formal titles for clergy.
If Russell Chandler, retired from the Los Angeles Times, is one of the gold-standard names in traditional religion-beat work, then our second subject represents a much edgier style of reporting from the post-1960s alternative press. The work being done by Julie Lyons in her Bible Girl columns at the Dallas Observer represents a kind of neo-European, advocacy version of the Godbeat in modern niche media.
Yes, yes, yes, your friends at GetReligion got all the emails. We know that you saw Corey Kilgannon’s story in The New York Times about the Rev. Louis Braxton Jr. and his ministry to the “tranny” streetwalkers of Astoria, Queens.
It has been some time since we offered any kind of update on the Anglican Wars, here and abroad. This one will be brief. I promise.
A very strange thing happens when journalists write books — they find themselves (hopefully) being interviewed by other journalists, often before speeches and other (hopefully) book-promoting events. Soon thereafter, they often read articles based on these interviews and find themselves exclaiming, “Wait just a (provide colorful descriptive words here) minute, I didn’t say that!”
Everyone needs heroes. Back in 1980 or so, when I was trying to break into religion reporting, I decided that one of my journalistic heroes was going to be Russell Chandler of the Los Angeles Times.
It has been quite some time since GetReligion plugged one of the weblog offerings of Christianity Today and the omnipresent Ted Olsen.
I was going to post this early in the week (hat tip to reader Larry Rasczak), but the Virginia Tech tragedy and several days of travel got in the way. I am currently in Southern California, after speaking for two days at California Baptist University.
