Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
As any regular reader knows, your GetReligionistas are rather picky when it comes to how journalists use the imperfect words that describe various religious groups in American and around the world. There’s that “fundamentalist” clause in the Associated Press Stylebook, for starters. We are not postmodern journalists. Maybe it’s the religious history major in me.
Usually I groan when I come across an Associated Press piece marked “analysis.” I like my AP reporters to report, not analyze. But in a year like this, when reporters have dropped most pretense of reporting in favor of overtly playing politics, it’s actually kind of a breath of fresh air to have something clearly identified as analysis. On this note, if media outlets’ horribly misnamed “fact checks” could go the way of the Dodo bird, I’d be most happy.
For some reason, this collection of stories currently running on the Washington Post‘s religion page remind me of that old saw, I believe coined by Tom Lehrer, about how the New York Times would cover the end of the world: “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
Last week we looked at veteran Time religion writer David Van Biema‘s fun piece “Is It OK to Pray for Your 401(k)? A Theological Primer.” We’ve been calling for good religion coverage, when possible, of the current economic situation. Van Biema followed up that great piece with a really fun and interesting look at how different religions understand appropriate investment.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen stories about Muslim rules prohibiting interest payments. Usually these stories are in a non-US context and deal with Muslim banking in general. But this wonderful Associated Press story looked at the issue in a distinctly American context:
When reporters write stories about traditional Islamic law, or sharia, for Western audiences, they often face a few dilemmas.
Remember the Episcopal priest who became a Muslim? We discussed coverage of her story here and here last year.
The Baltimore Sun had a pretty solid article last week about the challenges Muslim athletes face during the month of Ramadan, where fasting during daylight hours is a priority. In reading this article, I wonder whether other local newspapers have covered the issue last month. My local newspaper hasn’t to my knowledge, but let me know if you are aware of other local stories that appeared in September.
