Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The previous week gave us a lot to talk about here at GetReligion. Check out these GetReligion posts from Friday alone for a few bad examples of media coverage (here, here and here).
I’m just catching up on some email but last week a former reporter submitted a story for review with the note “You must do a GR post about the unbelievable NPR story today by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro on an excommunicated Catholic priest. It’s insane.” He wasn’t the only one. Other reporters and readers also noticed it as particularly deserving of a GetReligion glance.
As has been our practice since day one, your GetReligionistas rarely write posts about editorials, op-ed pages or opinion stories.
An article at BBC.com on the launch of a United Nations-backed campaign to promote gay rights in South Africa is a perfect example of the kinds of difficulties that mainstream journalists face when reporting on world figures who have left the public eye.
It’s impossible to know precisely what is happening inside the mind of a politician when he or she is taking part in a religious ritual, whether or not listeners are hearing the voice of a believer or that of a political realist who is skilled at watching national opinion polls.
The pope is abroad. This means, of course, that it is time to look at the papal texts — Vatican site here — and play a mainstream media game that can accurately be called “spot the political sound bite.”
As I have mentioned before here at GetReligion, at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks I was a member of a largely Lebanese and Syrian Orthodox parish in West Palm Beach, Fla. Our priest, as an Arab Christian, volunteered to be a grief counselor at the still-smoking ruins of the World Trade Center. A few members of the parish had their grandchildren punched around on school playgrounds because they were Arabs, even with their gold baptism crosses hanging around their necks.
We live in an age of unprecedented communications technology. With access to cell phones, Skype, email, Twitter, etc., it is has never been easier for people to communicate with one another. So why then is it so hard for reporters and headline writers to talk to each other?
