Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Something very sobering and terrible is sinking in for Western journalists who are covering the uprising in the Middle East. They are beginning to wonder if the outcomes of these revolutions will automatically be good or, at least, “good” as defined in terms of civil liberties and human rights as they are promoted at, let’s say, the United Nations.
This week marked the 12th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. Two senior students killed 12 students and one teacher. Many others were injured. I grew up not far from there and have spent many years trying to understand what happened. A few weeks ago, Wellington Menezes de Oliveira embarked on a massacre in a Brazilian school. Twelve students were killed. I’d actually been meaning to look into the coverage more since early reports mentioned both that he was raised as a Jehovah Witness and that he, at the very least, expressed an interest in Islam. But the coverage was so weak on those angles (here, here, here).
Last week, Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni was abducted by Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad members in Gaza. They posted a video online saying he’d be killed unless their rival Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, released Salafis in prison. Within hours, though, he was dead. The group, sometimes called Tawhid and Jihad, later denied kidnapping and killing Arrigoni, who was originally from Italy.
As a rule, I am not a fan of those little mini-opinion features that editors have started attaching to online news stories in order to gain an extra click or two for the website’s daily statistics. However, I thought that the following question offered an important insight into a Washington Post story that focuses on one of the most symbolic and emotional issues facing Islam today in the Western world.
One of the reasons so many big stories in our mainstream press are “haunted” by religion ghosts is that many reporters are confused about what is and what is not “religious.”
As I get all curmudgeonly in my old age, one of my pet peeves is the media’s schizophrenic treatment of certain news. The hot story of one day is completely forgotten the next. Or the insane, around-the-clock coverage of Terry Jones’ threat to burn a Koran is dropped for some reason, then briefly re-engaged for a blamefest before getting dropped again. What gets left out is any thorough discussion of the heady mix that led to the murderous rampage in Afghanistan.
Back in 2003, a friend of mine named Brent High made national headlines when he started organizing “Faith Nights” — Christian faith nights, that is — at minor-league baseball games in Nashville, Tenn.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the professionals who run many crucial mainstream newsrooms seem to be throwing up their hands, editorially speaking, when it comes to accurately describing the cracks and divisions inside the complex world of Islam?
Before I made my recent trip to Israel, as an Act for Israel media fellow, I was excited to learn more about how religion informs politics in the region. Many of my friends and acquaintances cautioned me that religion doesn’t play as big a role as one might think. I now realize that all they meant was that the story is much more complicated than just about religious differences.
