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One of the hardest things to explain to people who have never worked in a real newsroom is why some events are news at one moment in time and in one location, but a similar story is not news at some other time in some other location.
Most controversy in Green Bay revolves around the Packers, so it was a little surprising to see some tension after a group sought approval to develop a mosque in a shuttered bait and tackle shop just down the road from my house.
Earlier this week I wrote something for the Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” section about media missteps in coverage of the mosque proposed to be built near ground zero. One of the points I made was that the media make the opposing sides in this debate seem farther apart than they are:
I faced a crucial decision this week while writing the lede for my column for the Scripps Howard New Service, a decision that I knew — not matter what I decided — I was going to hear about it early and often.
More than a few readers have asked us to take another look at a topic we broached last week — the history of Cordoba, Spain. Historic Cordoba has been in the news because the proposed Islamic center near ground zero is part of what’s called the Cordoba Initiative. The center was going to be called Cordoba and its backers said it was in honor of a golden age of interfaith relations. Others were aghast at the name because Muslims conquered Cordoba’s Christians. The mosque’s backers are now calling it Park 51.
Talk about bad timing. Eid al-Fitr, the three-day celebration that concludes the month of Ramadan, ends on an unfortunate date this year: Sept. 11. And that is causing problems for some planned celebrations like the customary Eid festival that was canceled in Fresno.
There were two stories out of Saudi Arabia last week that begged for more detail. The first told of a judge who asked hospitals if they could sever a man’s spinal cord in order to paralyze him as punishment for injuries he inflicted during a fight. In many cases the stories didn’t highlight the judicial principle that motivated the judge’s request — a strict adherence to “an eye for an eye” judicial code. Or even if they mentioned the principle, they didn’t include a healthy discussion of the theology underlying it or the various interpretations of it.
The Washington Post ran an intriguing story Sunday about the apparent lack of state funding to provide Muslim chaplains in Virginia prisons.
