Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Whenever Pope Benedict XVI gives a homily or addresses a crowd, it’s always fascinating to see how the media write it up. This week, Benedict addressed the Vatican’s diplomatic corps that, by its nature, dealt a bit with broader political themes. How does a reporter sum up a 3,000-word address or figure out what aspect to focus on? To be sure, it’s a difficult task. The Boston Herald headlined its Associated Press story:
The Orthodox church that I attend is part of the ancient Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, which means that its ancient liturgical language is Arabic, even though our pan-Orthodox congregation uses English about 99 percent of the time.
If disaster strikes, you can pretty much count on religious broadcaster Pat Robertson to say something about it that offends much of the population. It’s not just Robertson, of course. You might recall Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., saying Katrina was about God wanting to smite Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour or something. Anyway, with the horrific news out of Haiti, that the earthquake there led to unbelievable loss of life and property, Robertson came in on cue. And news organizations spread the word immediately. Here’s how CNN reported it:
I’m always curious to see how the Vatican will take on pop culture, as it did in its recent comments celebrating the 20th anniversary of TV’s “The Simpsons.”
The other day, the divine Ms. MZ wrote an enthusiastically depressing post about some of the bad news that we keep hearing about the state of Godbeat reporting in the mainstream press. Grap a box of tissues and head back over there to read that post, if you dare.
This is the voice of the father of Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, who blew up himself and seven Central Intelligence Agency workers in Afghanistan in December.
When mainstream reporters write in and challenge something that we’ve published here, we always want to let that happen — especially if they will do that on the record. We want some of that discussion to happen out here on the “front page,” so to speak, rather than back in the comments pages.
News Flash: The New York Times believes that a small group of powerful U.S. evangelicals are forcing Ugandan policy makers into something they didn’t already want to do. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the front page article from yesterday on the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. The dateline says Kampala, but the article appears to be strung together from blog posts and could have been written from Antarctica.
Last week I read a Washington Post article about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man charged with attempting to bomb a flight to Detroit. In the same way that some media coverage of Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hasan explored his mental state, this Post article took the clinical approach with Abdulmutallab. Like Hasan, he was lonely and wanted to find a wife.
