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 I highlighted some of the coverage of the jury that deliberated the death penalty for convicted murderer Steven Hayes. Many media reports did a good job quoting the jurors and affected family members even when those quotes included religious language.
One of the oddities of the current conflict with Islamic radicalism is how one bit player can have such a big effect on things. Take Zachary Adam Chesser, a Northern Virginian convert who threatened the creators of “South Park” for, well, not portraying the Prophet Muhammad. This led to an attempt to defend First Amendment freedoms through the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. And that led not just to Pakistan blocking access to Facebook for a while but also to the founder of the day having to go into hiding, and change her livelihood, name and identity.
There is a truly shocking journalistic development in the Los Angeles Times report about the sudden and surprising early retirement of one of the world’s most famous bishops — Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the leader of the tiny Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. He was, of course, the first openly gay and noncelibate bishop enthroned in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
In the past decade or so, the mainstream press has offered waves of news features that have attempted to explain the state of mind in our nation’s growing Islamic population. The need for these stories is obvious, although most of them end up presenting a single, unified Muslim community that does not in fact exist.
Sometimes we note stories about natural disasters or other catastrophes that are bizarre for how obviously they avoid discussion of religion.
With the election finally over, I’m slowly emerging from the bunker at my newspaper in Washington, D.C. I work for an editorial page, and while I don’t strictly cover politics, obviously it has dominated the news for the last few months. I’ve been wanting to discuss something here for a while, but I’m just now getting around to it.
Don’t you just love the religion beat? I have never understood the complaint that religion news is boring territory. It seems like every time I turn around this beat serves of some new and fascinating twist, often with either joyful or distressing overtones.
Remember a few months ago when every other religion story was about the mosque to be built in Manhattan near Ground Zero? What happened with that whole thing?
Last month a conflict erupted between Catholics and Jews, and it has gotten a good deal of attention in publications focusing on those community. But it still seems to be a complete non-issue for the mainstream media.
