A friend in Turkey alerted me to a weird situation of two media outlets telling different versions of the same story. First, from Hurriyet:
Are Alawites and Alevis the same?
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Is Reuters denying Holocaust denial?
Finding the line between sensation and responsible reporting can be a difficult task. There are times when the subject of a news story will say something outrageous that causes a reporter to lay down his pen and ask, “Did you really mean that?” Over the top quotes can make a story pop — providing better placement in a newspaper and a brief “buzz” for the story. It can also distort the narrative, changing the story from the issues under discussion to comments about the issues.
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Forgiving monsters: The Dutroux Case
One of the most notorious criminal cases in modern European history has returned to the public eye, dominating the front pages and leaders of Belgium’s newspapers. A judge has agreed to release Michelle Martin from prison on the condition she enter the Convent of the Les Soeurs Clarisses de Malonne (Poor Clares) and remain under police supervision.
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Knife and faith in Italy
The Obama administration is not the only government to have come under fire from its critics for abusing the religious liberty of its citizens. Italy has refused to recognize Sikhism as a religion and denied Sikhs the right to practice their faith reports La Stampa, the Turin-based Italian daily newspaper.
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Islamist horror via single anonymous source
A horrible story came out of Aguelhok, Mali, in recent days. It was reported by a variety of outlets, but I wanted to highlight the way the New York Times reported it. Headlined, “Islamists in North Mali Stone Couple to Death,” here’s how it begins:
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Apocalyptic visions, care of secular prophets
Remember that odd news-you-can-use meditation feature that ran the other day in The Los Angeles Times, the one that didn’t seem to realize there was a religion angle to the story?
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London 2012 fetes British ink, film and (gasp!) hymnody
Folks, I have committed a serious sin that I hate to spot among other reporters. When searching for obvious religion, I overlooked the subtle spots.
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Catholics, Commies, and Gays -- Oh my!
The story of Archbishop Róbert Bezák is ready made for the Da Vinci Code treatment. Yet the press has bungled a Catholic story — the Associated Press piece that ran in most U.S. newspapers devoted more space to a rehash of the clergy pedophile scandal than the church conflict in the Slovak Republic.
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BBC bias from Cuba
In my experience, the BBC does not “get religion”. I am not speaking of the reporters assigned to cover religion stories — they are a professional crew and are always worth reading. I find the problem with the BBC’s coverage arises when a religion angle appears in a non-religion story. More often than not the BBC is at sea when it comes to the faith. You can see this confusion in the BBC’s coverage of the death of Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya.
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