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I’ll ‘fess up, OK? I confess that I have been paying a bit of attention to the latest “What in the ^#@* has gone wrong with England story?” That would be the train wreck of coverage about young master Alfie Patten, the baby-faced (this word is included in almost every UK story) 13-year-old who has just become his land’s most famous baby father.
Trust me, I realize that what I am about to write falls into the “there he goes again, saying the same old things” category. I wish that wasn’t the case, but I know that it is.
In the April issue of The Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan has written an informative and sometimes chilling profile of Narendra Modi, chief minister of the northwestern state of Gujarat. Modi is important because of his increasing influence within the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and allegations that he helped encourage Hindu riots against Muslims in 2002.
On the same day that Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput was critiquing media coverage of the church, we got a real time example of some less-than-stellar religion reporting. Pope Benedict XVI landed in Africa this week and received breathless coverage because, as Amy Welborn put it over at Beliefnet, “the Pope has not booked a seat on the condom train.”
I don’t watch American Idol, but I think that if I lived in a foreign culture, that country’s version of the show would be a great place to learn about that particular society. This rather amazing Guardian story on Afghanistan’s Afghan Star television show gives readers a glimpse into a society that we generally only hear in the news when it relates to war, terrorism and international politics. As a reader noted, how often do we hear about the regular people from Afghanistan, the ones who have put up with multiple invasions, governments and a bleak future.
The world’s economic troubles have many journalists writing articles about how the global society is changing as a consequence of the recession. For example, the Atlantic had this cover story on how communities like New York City will benefit from the financial crash (not exactly original or surprising considering the author). The Economist writes about how we may see a return “of economic nationalism.”
Why did Lahore, Pakistan, think it was different? And different from what? Much has been made about how Lahore was perceived as different since the brutal, daylight attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.
A GetReligion reader with an intense interest in history, especially in northern Africa and other regions bordering the Middle East, sent me the URL of to this haunting multi-media feature by CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson.
Fareed Zakaria has written a thoughtful and creative cover essay for the latest Newsweek. He argues for making distinctions between Islamists who are terrorists and Islamists who wish for Sharia law in their own nations but have not supported terrorism.
