Godbeat

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The fighting rabbinical student

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Typically, we refer to a person studying to be a rabbi, like the newly crowned WBA junior middleweight champ Yuri Foreman, as a rabbinical student, not a rabbi-to-be. The Los Angeles Times got it right; USA Today got it wrong. But the LAT failed to deliver even a light body blow to the broader tale of Talmud and the tape. The first word of sports reporter Kevin Baxter’s article about Foreman is “rabbinical” — and not another mention of anything related to Judaism.


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Scandal in Providence

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This has been such a busy time for religious news that we’ve missed a fairly interesting story coming out of Rhode Island. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy got things going in a fiery Oct. 21 interview with Cybercast News Service. Here’s how The Providence Journal wrote up what happened:


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Planned Parenthood goes to church, maybe

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What we have here is a story with two acts, but it’s a drama that James Davison Hunter would completely and totally understand. If you need help with that reference, please click here.


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More quote malpractice

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We’ve looked a bit at the coverage of Rep. Bart Stupak’s successful amendment to the House health care legislation that prohibits the use of tax dollars to fund abortions. Catholic representatives and the Catholic Conference of Bishops were key players in getting this amendment passed, certainly.


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Wish-fulfillment journalism

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Amy Sullivan is a senior editor at Time. She’s remarkably partisan, even by journalistic standards, and sometimes her views can color her writing. But boy is she taking some flak for her recent piece “Priests Spar Over What It Means to Be Catholic.” Let’s just start with the headline. Considering that what follows is analysis about the views of an archbishop and a cardinal (and not priests), you know that facts aren’t going to be the piece’s strong suit.


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Maybe the bishops really mattered

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Last night around midnight, the House of Representatives passed a health care bill by a narrow margin — 220 to 215. The Washington Post has the details.


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Of course, Friday prayers were important

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Sometimes, it’s hard to believe what your ears are hearing — especially when you are listening to broadcast journalists having to work on deadline under tremendous amounts of pressure. That is why journalists hire experts, people to help them navigate the dense and often tricky language and symbolism of complex organizations, rituals and traditions.


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Archbishop Dolan blogs on the Gray Lady

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Well, The New York Times may get Judaism, it might not get Hinduism, but does it get Catholicism? Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has decided to use recent articles from the Gray Lady to show how Americans — especially journalists in his zip code — are anti-Catholic. Needless to say, this was an op-ed article that Fox News was happy to publish, while the Times declined to do so.


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