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I believe it was President Obama who once said something about the press corps in Washington getting all “wee-weed up” in August. There have been a few news stories in recent weeks that have drawn more attention than they should have (and a few that have certainly received less). But the story we’re going to look at here might take the cake for summer silliness.
It is a common critique that residents of one country are disinterested in the goings on in other countries. But one story from this weekend spread quickly across news media and social media — albeit less so in American media than globally. The story is a sad one. I first learned about it from a news outlet called Times of India:
In this weekâs podcast Issues Etc. host Todd Wilkin and I discussed three recent GetReligion stories: Doggie Masses offered by Inclusive Catholics in Australia, one-sided reporting on Missouri’s Amendment 2, and the parole of Michelle Martin.
In his 2008 Atlantic review of Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite Christopher Hitchens retells a “sour old joke” from the Nazi era.
On this week’s Crossroads, host Todd Wilken and I spoke about media coverage of the Chick-Fil-A protests, the misplaced outrage at CNN when the channel was blamed for something an online commenter had written about the shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and the Alawite/Alevi confusion displayed by the New York Times.
Of all of the things that outsiders do not understand about the journalism business, one of the most important is an all-too-common misunderstanding about who writes the headlines that do so much to shape the perceptions of news consumers.
There is a serious wildfire raging near one of the monasteries on Mount Athos, which is, without challenge, the most important center of Eastern Orthodox spirituality in the world. Few would dispute that this rocky peninsula in Greece is one of the world’s most important religious centers — period.
The Associated Press has a story headlined “Pastor on trial in Vt; mom still AWOL with child.” It begins:
Can a dog be a good Catholic? Must a dog be baptized before it receives Holy Communion? For that matter, can a dog be saved? Will all dogs go to heaven, or does Laika’s 1957 launch mark the apogee of canine celestial progress?
