Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Since your GetReligionistas went pretty ga-ga the other day while celebrating post No. 6,000, I think it is wise to try to stay calm while noting that today — Feb. 1 — marks the site’s seventh birthday. I mean, 10 people left comments to celebrate that previous landmark! Nevertheless, we plunged ahead and did a podcast to mark the event, too.
Did you hear about the man arrested with a car full of explosives (M80 fireworks) outside a Michigan Islamic center? Here’s the Detroit News lede for “Plot to blow up Dearborn mosque foiled by tip to police”:
CNN’s Reliable Sources from Sunday details some of the general problems or opportunities with media coverage in Egypt. Host Howard Kurtz and his guests discuss everything from Al Jazeera being shut down in Egypt to how reporters are dodging bullets with protesters being felled all around. The closure of foreign bureaus means that those hungry for news have been tuning into Al Jazeera English, which focuses on Middle East coverage. Tmatt already looked at one ghost in the coverage — the fate of Egypt’s Christian community.
Do you remember that post more than a week ago about the issue of Catholics (and other believers in ancient communions) praying “with,” and not “to,” the saints? This issue came up in the context of the rapid movement of the late Pope John Paul II toward sainthood in the Catholic Church. Click here the original post on that.
We’ve had many days of protests and the conditions are dramatically different now than even yesterday. Protesters, police and military are on the streets of cities throughout Egypt, despite a curfew and unbelievable crackdown on communications. News outlets are reporting that their staff are being beaten up, arrested, or thwarted in their attempts to get the news published and broadcast. There was a surreal moment when Al Jazeera was broadcasting while police were trying to shut them down. Reuters reports that more than 400 have been wounded, some with bullets.
Anti-government protests are shaking Egypt right now. It’s incredibly hard to get good information about what is going on there since the U.S.-backed Mubarak government (we give them over $1.3 billion annually, I believe) has shut down social media and regular media. Here’s just one recent example:
The 38th annual March for Life was held today, an event for which media coverage is always a contentious topic. The video embedded here is something that came out from a pro-life group after some of the media coverage of last year’s march. As such, the language is rather partisan. But I highlight it to show what, exactly, pro-lifers complain about. Others argue that these complaints are such an annual rite themselves that maybe pro-life leaders should take some of the blame for their public relations problems.
