International News

, , , ,

ESPN probes Jeremy Lin's 'inner life,' while paying little or no attention to his soul

, , , ,

I think it's time for a short break from the Indiana wars, at least for a day. So what do you remember about "Linsanity"?

I am referring, of course, to those crazy weeks in 2012 when an unheralded point guard from Harvard University took over professional basketball, which is the kind of thing that can happen when you start playing out of your mind in Madison Square Garden wearing a Knicks jersey.

Jeremy Lin also received attention here at GetReligion because of the role that his Christian faith played in his life. Two headlines capture the tone  -- Sarah Pulliam Bailey's "Jeremy Lin, the Knick's Tim Tebow?" and a piece that I wrote, looking ahead, called "So, is Jeremy Lin a good fit in New York City?" One quote from the New York Times coverage says it all:

If Lin’s storybook week captured the imagination of New York City and the wider sports world, it hit the community of Christian Asian-Americans like a lightning bolt.

You get the picture. The world is not full of over-achieving evangelical Christians from Harvard who are also Asian-Americans and play point guard in New York City. So what happened? First he was traded to a city where, to be blunt about it, he was not as unusual -- playing for the Houston Rockets. But then he was shipped to one of the darkest black holes in the current NBA universe, the rebuilding with little to build with Los Angeles Lakers.

This brings us to the current ESPN: The Magazine feature on Lin, that ran under the massive double-decker headline: "Isolation Play -- It isn't Kobe's taunts or humiliating viral videos that have made this the toughest year of Jeremy Lin's life. It's the feeling that, as hard as he tries, he just doesn't fit in."

So while examining this young man's dark night of the soul, want to guess which part of the Lin story ESPN all but ignored?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

Hey Washington Post editors: Did al-Shabaab say its goal was to kill Christians in Kenya?

, , , , , , , ,

Sad, but true. Mainstream European newspapers, as a rule, pay much more attention to foreign news than their American counterparts (unless, of course, a particular story involves Americans who are overseas). In recent years, it also seems that European newspapers are being much more candid about the role that religion plays in many international stories.

Want to see an example? Let's contrast two examples of coverage of the hellish Holy Week massacre at Garissa University College in Kenya, one from England and one from America. Let's start with The Telegraph, and then look at the main story in The Washington Post, which seems to have buried some key details.

At least 147 people have been killed after Islamist terrorists attacked a Kenyan university, singling out Christian students to murder.
A five-man cell of the Somali-based al-Shabaab group stormed into halls of residence at Garissa University College, 200 miles east of the capital Nairobi, Thursday morning, shooting at students before taking others hostage. ...
Many of those who had been killed had their throats cut, according to one source who had spoken to morgue workers. The report could not be immediately verified.
Security analysts feared that the gang intended to keep their remaining hostages overnight ahead of further violence on Friday, to maximise attention for their attack during the Easter holidays.

That is terribly blunt stuff. I thought it was crucial that -- consistent with the vast majority of reports in world media -- the Telegraph editors made the decision to put the word "Christian" in the lede and also, within a few paragraphs, to note the rather obvious Easter-holiday timing factor in the attack.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

Do American newspapers have the time, space and patience to cover Saudi Arabia?

, , , , , , , , , ,
Do American newspapers have the time, space and patience to cover Saudi Arabia?

How do you handle a "friend" as frustrating as Saudi Arabia? What kind of news coverage does this "friend" deserve, week after week, in the mainstream American press?

Yes, those are scare quotes meant to signal doubt because Saudi reciprocity seems to me as shaky as that of any of Washington's so-called allies.

Its religious, political and social values are opposite those of every Western democracy, including, of course, the United States. The ruling family, the House of Saud spends billions to spread its ultra-conservative brand of Wahhabi Sunni Islam across the Muslim world and is at the center of just about every intra-Muslim conflict across the Middle East, the latest -- but certainly not the most inconsequential -- of which is Yemen, where the long-building Shia-Sunni confrontation could reach a horrific climax.

But even as its policies toward women are criticized continually in the West, the same Western nations rush to do business with the ridiculously oil rich, theocratic monarchy -- putting profits before principles at virtually every opportunity.

That's why the spate of stories the past several weeks concerning the Swedish foreign minister's publicly calling out the Saudis on political and women's rights were to my thinking a refreshing change of pace. Not only did Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticize policies, she directly blamed the Saudi royal family for the state of affairs, a rarity in the coded language of international diplomacy.

What? You say you're not familiar with this story?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Was King Richard III a 'bad guy' and does that have anything to do with the church?

, , , , , , ,

The headline on this particular "WorldViews" feature in The Washington Post was crisp and to the point: "Was King Richard III a bad guy?" The problem, of course, is that there are at least three different ways to read those final two words.

Are we asking if he was a "bad guy," in the sense of playing the role of the villain in a mystery play? Or are we asking if he was simply "bad" in the sense that he wasn't good at what he did. Was he a bad, as in ineffective, king? Or maybe -- since much of the historical curiosity about Richard III is linked to his faith, his alleged deeds and his dynasty -- is the question whether or not he was "bad," in terms of being a sinner?

Here's the overture of the piece (sorry to be getting to this after the event itself):

The remains of England's King Richard III, who died in battle more than five centuries ago, will be re-interred ... at Leicester Cathedral. The planned burial has dominated headlines in Britain, where the fate of the late monarch's bones has been a source of national fascination since they were dug up in a Leicester parking lot in 2012 and identified using DNA testing a year later.
Richard III was slain in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, a moment immortalized by Shakespeare. In Richard III, the cornered king senses his own doom. "I have set my life upon a cast,/ And I will stand the hazard of the die," he intones, and then famously cries out: "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse." But Richard never escaped on a trusted steed and was, instead, cut down by the soldiers of his rival, Henry Tudor, whose descendants would be Shakespeare's royal patrons.

Now, this piece has plenty of "Game of Thrones" style details in it. That's OK. What I was surprised to see was that it contained absolutely nothing about Richard III being a Catholic, in this era right before the Reformation changed the destiny of the Church of England.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Covering religion news events in foreign lands? Think location, location, location

, , , , , ,
Covering religion news events in foreign lands? Think location, location, location

Writing about events in a foreign land? Then keep in mind this retailing truism: Location, location, location. In journalese, that might read, what seems an obvious choice in one place can look illogical and even dangerous somewhere else.

When speaking religion journalese, that means Nigerian Anglicans are different from New York City Episcopalians, Baltimore Roman Catholics diverge from their co-religionists in Rio de Janeiro, and American-born Muslims do not think exactly like the Muslims of Saudi Arabia.

Likewise, the politics and beliefs of American Jews do not necessarily equate with the politics and beliefs of Israeli Jews. Assuming they do says more about the journalist than it does the subject.

Which brings me to last week's Israeli election that saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reelected, and handily so.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

When iron birds fly and Chinese leaders ponder the politics of reincarnation ...

, , , , , , ,

Its origin is much disputed, but an often-repeated Tibetan saying goes as follows: "When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the face of the world, and the dharma (Buddhist teachings) will come to the land of the red-faced man."

Because of Chinese occupation, a Tibetan diaspora is indeed scattered across the globe. But are the iron-bird and horse-on-wheels images references to airplanes and automobiles? And what about red-faced men? Is that a reference to Native Americans? As noted, the authenticity of this supposedly ancient prophecy is much in doubt.

Authentic or not, it's undeniable that various Buddhist practices and traditions have found widespread acceptance in the West. The world's best-known Buddhist, Tenzin Gyatso, much better known as the Dalai Lama, a man of gentle demeanor and a contagious laugh, is in good measure responsible for this. He's also the subject of what may be the year's oddest religion news story.

China, in case you missed it, is upset that the Dalai Lama has threatened not to reincarnate. Ponder that for a minute.

While not an entirely new story, it is, on its face, an illogical one.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

You have $1.25 million: Who gets that check if the goal is basic, balanced religion-news reporting?

, , , , , , ,

Here at the Washington Journalism Center, the full-semester program I lead at the DC center for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, we have a number of sayings that are repeated over and over that they turn into journalism mantras. I imagine that will be true when we reboot the program next year in New York City at The King's College.

One of these sayings goes like this: Everybody in this city knows more stories than you do. I also like to stress this: The most important skill in journalism is the ability to accurately state the views of someone with whom you disagree. And then there's one that is discussed here frequently, in this Keller-istic, Twitter-driven age in which the digital line between newswriting and editorializing is often quite faded and hard to spot: Opinion is cheap; information is expensive.

Then there is another WJC mantra that moves us closer to some news sure to intrigue those interesting in religion-beat coverage in the mainstream press. This one isn't very snappy, but it's a concept that is crucial for young journalists to grasp. Here it is: In the future there will be no one dominant business model (think newspaper chains built on advertising, mixed with the sale of dead-tree pulp) for mainstream journalism, but multiple approaches to funding the creation of information and news.

I warned you that it wasn't short and snappy.

Obviously, one of the crucial emerging models right now is the growing world of non-profit and foundation-driven journalism.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

How bad can the Pope Francis vs. Pope Benedict XVI frame game get? Check this out!

, , , , , , , , ,
How bad can the Pope Francis vs. Pope Benedict XVI frame game get? Check this out!

Several months ago, your GetReligionistas created our "What is this?" logo to salute a question that we have found ourselves asking over and over during the past decade.

Here's the deal. So you are reading something in a newspaper or online source that is supposed to be producing old-school hard news. Then you hit a passage or two that, simply stated, are wildly opinionated or built on what appears to be secret information, without a source that is shared with readers. In other words, you hit a patch of blatant opinion in the middle of a "news" article, like a patch of black ice on a highway that at first glance appears to be safe.

So you look at the top of the "news" article, trying to find evidence of a columnist logo or an "analysis" tag line. But it's not there. That's when you say (all together), "What is this?" There should probably be "!!!!" marks in there, too, or worse (as in What *& %^ #* is this?!).

Want to see an instant classic? Here's one, from an Agence France-Presse story -- drawn from Yahoo! -- sent to team GetReligion by an stunned reader (who thought some of the adjectives were way over the top). Let's look at the passage in context. Remember, this is drawn from a news report about the second anniversary of the election of Pope Francis, not a commentary or analysis piece:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

When will 'three-parent babies' come to the U.S.?

, , , , , , , , , , ,
When will 'three-parent babies' come to the U.S.?

The headline above is borrowed verbatim from a Feb. 6 Scientific American article (coverage here) after the House of Commons voted by 75 percent to make Britain the first nation to legalize “three-parent babies.” The House of Lords gave the final approval Feb. 24.  Newcastle University researchers are already paying women to be genetic donors, and the first such births are expected next year.

The hope here is to avoid babies with devastating “mitochondrial” birth defects and related ailments like muscular dystrophy.  So these experiments have the best of motives, though scientists and theologians alike question the means.  Reporters should note good online coverage of pros and cons by Sarah Knapton in the London Telegraph.

News media take note: The U.S. debate will gain prominence with a March 31 – April 1  “public workshop” in Washington by the  panel that’s advising the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Institute of Medicine on this. Its delightfully bureaucratic name: “Committee on Ethical and Social Policy Considerations of Novel Techniques for Prevention of Maternal Transmission of Mitochondrial DNA Diseases.” 


Please respect our Commenting Policy