Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Last week, Stricherz highlighted a Washington Post story about Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming visit to the states. I’m sure we’ll be highlighting many more stories as the visit approaches, but I wanted to direct readers to a few of the better sites for coverage.
The New York Times had a fine story the other day about country-music superstar Alan Jackson. No, honest. Read it for yourself. It covers all kinds of territory, including his gospel album that turned into a surprise hit.
I’ve never talked to a priest. As a reporter, that is. I’ve talked to bishops and cardinals. I talked even to a former president, which for reporters is a big “get.” But I’ve never talked to a priest.
If you heard that the ultra-hip Washington Post Style section was going to do a feature story about a conservative Christian college located in the heart of Manhattan — in the Empire State Building, for heaven’s sake — you would assume that certain issues would come up and be used in a rather snarky manner.
It was just yesterday that readers were complaining that I was too hard on a New York Times contributor for her piece expressing surprise that Christians can be funny. But usually I think I’m too understanding of the mistakes reporters make.
This past summer I was talking with another religion-beat professional and this nationally known journalist put something into words that I had been feeling, but had not yet articulated. This scribe who will not be named said that on many days she or he felt like he or she was turning into a public-relations person for the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
The “theodicy” issue seems to come up pretty often at GetReligion, which isn’t surprising since (a) disaster and tragedy are part of this sinful, fallen world and (b) the word “why” remains part of the “who, what, when, where, why and how” journalistic equation.
Last week the highest court of the Presbyterian Church (USA) ruled on a pretty contentious issue. I thought I’d wait a few days until more coverage of the ruling appeared in the mainstream press. But other than a few reports from veteran local religious reporters, I haven’t seen much of anything. Apparently a church ruling on homosexuality is only interesting to the media when it happens in The Episcopal Church.
I have been putting off posting the second part of my dialogue (click here for earlier post) with freelance journalist Andrea Useem for two simple reasons: (1) I was out of town for a week, attempting to survive four days of traffic-challenged driving in greater Los Angeles and (2) we normally fill our 5Q+1 interviews with hyperlinks to all of the publications, schools, think tanks, etc., linked to the journalist’s career and, in this case, Useem has just been too busy for me to look up all of those links.
