Jim Davis

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Asatru: Is that true? Were terrorist wannabes pagans? Do news media care?

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FBI agents crack a plot to kill blacks and Jews, allegedly planned by members of a little-known religion. How do you cover the story?

If you're like many mainstream media, you ignore or downplay the religion.

The guys in question are Virginians who allegedly wanted to buy guns and bombs, then attack synagogues and black churches. Unfortunately for them, their contacts were undercover FBI agents, who then arrested them.

Oh yeah, FBI also said they were Norse neo-pagans.

How did the media handle all this? We'll start our survey with the typically spare hard-news story from the Associated Press:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Two men described by authorities as white supremacists have been charged in Virginia with trying to illegally buy weapons and explosives to use in attacks on synagogues and black churches.
Robert C. Doyle and Ronald Beasley Chaney III tried to buy an automatic weapon, explosives and a pistol with a silencer from three undercover agents posing as illegal firearms dealers, FBI agent James R. Rudisill wrote in an affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

If the FBI is right, they're clearly racist anti-Semites. What about their spiritual leanings? AP doesn't tell us until more than halfway down, and then only a little more:

According to Rudisill's affidavit, Doyle and the younger Chaney "ascribe to a white supremacy extremist version of the Asatru faith," a pagan sect that emphasizes Norse gods and traditions. The affidavit says the FBI learned that Doyle planned to host a meeting at his home in late September to discuss "shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues, conducting acts of violence against persons of Jewish faith, and doing harm to a gun store owner in the state of Oklahoma."

The AP report was based partly on one by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. That story says pretty much the same phrases about Asatru and bombing black and Jewish congregations. "Asatru is a pagan religion," it unhelpfully adds.

CNN heavy hitters Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown mention only the men's membership in a "white supremacist group." They reference the case of Dylann Roof, the church bomber in Charleston, S.C., but only because he and the new defendants both talked about starting a race war.

Even this morning, a local CBS affiliate, which boasted of having broken the story, merely adds that police and FBI agents raided two other homes, including that of Chaney's father.

Ah, but the Washington Post was on the job. They'd help us understand, right? Well, kinda:


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Red Cup Diaries: Mainstream media cover Starbucks' Christmas brew-haha

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So this Christian guy online aims a camera at his face and says that coffee cups show Starbucks "hates Jesus."

Can you say click-bait? There go those religious crazies again. Just the kind of story that mainstream media like to pounce on, eh?

Except, to my surprise, most didn’t this time. Instead, they just covered it, pro and con, and looked for facts.

Our story starts with Joshua Feuerstein, a former evangelical pastor based in Arizona. Feuerstein saw Starbucks' new cups for the Christmas season -- plain red with the company's green mermaid trademark -- and freaked.

"Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand-new cups?" the fast-talking minister says in a video.  He boasted that he entered one of their coffee shops and told a barista his name was "Merry Christmas," forcing the worker to write the phrase on his cup.

He chortles:

So guess, what, Starbucks? I tricked you into putting "Merry Christmas" on your cup. And I'm challenging all great Americans and Christians around this great nation: Go into Starbucks and take your own coffee selfie. And then I challenge you to not only share this video so that the word gets out, but let's start start a movement, and let's call it, I dunno, "#MerryChristmasStarbucks," and I know that by sharing this video, and getting other Christians to do it, well …


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The silent spots speak loudest in New York Times story on Houston battle

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Conservatives used fear-mongering tactics to turn back an equal-rights ordinance in Houston.

What tactics did their liberal opponents use? Oh, who cares?

The New York Times doesn't totally ignore supporters in writing up the referendum to repeal the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). But the story does pretty much fixate on who the opponents were, what they did and what the consequences might be. And what the newspaper chose not to say spoke volumes.

A bit o' background from the Times:

The measure banned discrimination in housing, private employment, city contracting and businesses such as restaurants, bars and hotels for 15 protected classes. These included minorities, women, gays and transgender individuals.
Restrooms are not specifically mentioned in the measure, which is why conservatives were accused of fearmongering. Still, it was the ordinance’s supporters, not its opponents, who appeared to first raise the issue of bathrooms last year. A draft of the bill included a section, later removed, that would have let transgender people use the bathroom that best reflected their gender identity. Opponents seized on the issue and never let go.

The article goes way back in sketching out the battle. More than a year ago, Mayor Annise D. Parker and her supporters first proposed the ordinance. Since Parker was the first openly lesbian mayor of a major American city, they expected smooth sailing.

Meanwhile, the opposition Campaign for Houston was polling various emphases and decided on bathrooms:

This reframing cast the issue as a matter of public safety, with claims that the measure would allow men who were dressed as women or who identified as women to enter women’s bathrooms and attack or threaten girls and women inside. The measure’s critics called it the Bathroom Ordinance and simplified their message to five words: “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms.”

How ironic to see the Times talk about reframing, then saying that opponents "seized" on the issue. The newspaper also frames the story with standard labeling. Various forms of "conservative" were used seven times; "liberal," zero.

Besides "conservatives" and "pastors" -- and in one place, "religious conservatives" -- the Times says the ordinance foes include Ed Young, a Houston pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It also names Tony Perkins of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council. How about the faith of the supporters? Were they all atheists or those multiplying "Nones"? Did any of the four reporters on this story ask?


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Washington Post examines the 'Liberty Way,' and produces a well-done article

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When I was told to look at a Washington Post story on changing rules at Liberty University, I readied my scalpels for some dissecting. What good could come from a Beltway view of a southern fundamentalist school?

Then I read the story and put away the blades. The piece is restrained but perceptive, respectful and balanced. Writer Alexandra Markovich does basic reporting: reading documents, digging into newsclip's and interviewing campus sources -- students and outside critics as well as administrators. And she gets through all 1,400 words without using the "F" word -- "Fundamentalist."

In her freelanced article, the 19-year-old Princeton student looks at change from more than one angle. She notes a slight loosening of dress and conduct codes, toward guidelines more than tight rules. And she holds up a strong sign of toleration: Bernie Sanders, who addressed a university convocation in September -- a nod to diversity that isn’t matched on some liberal campuses.

At first, the article looks like a typical "tee-hee" at blue-nosed southerners:

Change is in the air at Liberty University: couples can now do more than hold hands in public without fear of fine, men can wear ponytails, and students can watch R-rated movies(with “caution”). Liberty, the largest Christian university in the world, has relaxed its rules this semester to give its students more freedom.
The university has simplified the Liberty Way, its code of conduct, dropping outdated rules. Witchcraft, for instance, “or other satanic or demonic activity,” no longer risks a $500 fine and possible administrative withdrawal, a change from the 2014 edition of the Liberty Way.
The university has also cut a full page from the document’s dress code description, essentially leaving the students to decide what they mean by “Hairstyles and fashion should avoid extremes.” However, shorts are still not permitted in class and women’s’ skirts may not be shorter than two inches above the knee.

Then Markovich tells us that Liberty University has hosted talks by avowed socialist Sanders as well as the more conservative Ted Cruz. She says the changes in the Liberty Way are "merely an update to match what things already looked like in practice."


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For Day of the Dead, mainstream media coverage is moribund

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Folk holidays like the Day of the Dead make a good litmus test for mainstream media attitudes toward religion. A few reports interview adherents and research the spirituality behind the practices.  But most just seem to want to snap photos of the natives.

The two-day event, Nov. 1 and 2, is especially popular in Haiti and Mexico. It's a blend of Catholic and indigenous religion, either praying for the dead or asking the blessings of deities who care for them. 

That's one way to look at it. But for folks at the the Associated Press, these days, it's all about weird people and weird customs:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Revelers streamed into cemeteries across Haiti on Sunday bearing beeswax candles, food offerings and bottles of rum infused with hot peppers to mark the country's annual Voodoo festival of the dead.
At Port-au-Prince's sprawling national cemetery, Voodoo priests and priestesses gathered around a blackened monument that is believed to be the oldest grave. There, they lit candles and stoked small fires as they evoked the spirit Baron Samedi, the guardian of the dead who is typically depicted with a dark top hat and a white skull face.

Most of the story is pretty much in the same vein: Oooo, lookit that (click, click)! And that that (click, click)! 

Unfortunately, most of the "coverage" takes the form of images in "Photos of the Day" galleries. Even in far-off Australia, that nation's ABC News has a brief story with references to "sugar skulls, marigold flowers and other spirit offerings."

Not that AP's piece was a triumph of perceptiveness.


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Fighting Boko Haram: Media accounts tell more about the war than the enemy

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I'm glad that mainstream media are keeping our attention on the ongoing tragedy of Nigeria and Boko Haram. But not everyone does it equally well -- and some of the better-known outfits, not as well as you'd expect.

The Nigerian military has resumed raids on the Islamist guerrilla group, rescuing hundreds of women and children; it has issued a "Wanted" poster of the top 100 leaders in the group; and an international task force is mustering for a new round of attacks on the militants.

All this is in multiple reports, but none of them has it all. And few offer background on the warped version of Islam that underlies Boko Haram's basic assumptions.

Some of the reports repeat the horrendous numbers: thousands dead, 2.1 million refugees since 2009. Those are vital stats to remember. But the reports also need to keep plain the ideology of Boko Haram.

Take yesterday's "Big Story" in the much-quoted Associated Press:

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigerian troops have rescued 338 captives, almost all children and women, from Boko Haram camps in a northeastern forest, the military said Wednesday.
Thirty extremists were killed Tuesday in attacks on two camps on the fringes of the Islamic insurgents' holdout in Sambisa Forest, according to a Defense Headquarters statement on social media.
Separately troops ambushed and killed four suspects on a bombing mission in northeastern Adamawa state, it said. Hundreds of people have died in suicide bombing attacks mainly targeting mosques and markets in recent months.

Did you notice the attribution? A "Defense Headquarters statement on social media." And no one was directly quoted or even named. This despite the fact that the much smaller African website Sahara Reporters did get a name -- Army spokesperson Colonel SK Usman -- although apparently only on a press release.


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Trumped-up quarrel fuels mainstream media campaign coverage

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Donald Trump is brash and boorish, and he seldom takes back anything he's said. So he set himself up for the garish headlines.

Still, that doesn't mean mainstream media had to write them. But (sigh) they did.

* "Trump Goes After Carson," Ken Walsh's blog in U.S. News & World Report trumpeted.

* "Trump Questions Carson's Faith, Won't Apologize," says a Newsweek headline, with an equally gossipy lede: "As the third Republican presidential debate approaches and the field narrows, Donald Trump and Ben Carson continue to use religion as a cudgel for beating each other over the head."

* "Donald Trump Attacks Ben Carson, and Highlights His Religion," says the usually restrained New York Times.

What-all did Trump say to deserve this? Not a whole lot, according to CBS News: "I'm Presbyterian. Boy. That's down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventists, I don't know about, I just don't know about."

That's it. That's what Trump said in toto.

"What did you mean by that?" Jonathan Dickerson asked on CBS' Face the Nation.

Trump's reply: "I don't know about them. I don't know about what that is. I'm not that familiar with it. I've heard about it, but I'm not that familiar with it.  That wasn't meant to be an insult, obviously. It's just that I don't know about it."

Some media, including the Washington Post, tried to have it both ways: first, a j'accuse of a headline -- "Donald Trump: No apology for questioning Ben Carson’s Seventh-day Adventist faith" -- then a more sober recap of the facts:


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Religious freedom bill: Sarasota newspaper knows how you should view it

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Florida's Protection of Religious Freedom Bill was only born on Wednesday, and pro-gay advocates already want to strangle it in the crib. Unfortunately, some of them are in media that are supposed to inform, not propagandize.

HB 401 would protect a "health care facility, health care provider, person, closely held organization, religious institution, business owned or operated by religious institution, or private child-placing agency that refuses to perform certain actions that would be contrary to religious or moral convictions or policies." The bill was inspired by lawsuits in other states against people who didn’t want to make cakes or shoot photos for gay weddings, as its sponsor has said.

That was enough for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to take off running. Here are the first three paragraphs:

Florida adoption agencies could turn away same sex couples for religious reasons and certain businesses in the state could deny them products or services under a bill filed Wednesday by state Rep. Julio Gonzalez that echoes highly-controversial legislation from other states.
The bill – slammed by gay rights leaders as one of the most discriminatory anti-LGBT measures in the nation – is a response to infringement on religious liberties around the country said Gonzalez, R-Venice.
“There have been various situations where there are increasing possibilities of subsections of society having their religious freedoms encroached on,” Gonzalez said. “Over time it became obvious to me we need to adopt some statutory protections.”

So we start with two negative paragraphs, finally followed by a quote from Gonzalez. The newspaper then adds background on similar legal measures -- in Florida, Indiana and Arkansas -- that failed to pass or withered under boycott threats and negative publicity.

Given all that, can you guess what attitude the newspaper wants to impress on you?

The Herald-Tribune article did make an impression: Within a day, the story rippled through gay media.


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Mormon leader calls for balance, and Associated Press calls it 'transformation'

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Mainstream media apparently are still hyperventilating over Pope Francis' "Who am I to judge?" remark, plugging it into other news stories. This week's version is a speech by Mormon Elder Dallin H. Oaks, who called yesterday for religious and secular people to respect each others' rights and beliefs.

"Compromise" and "balance" were the keywords in Oaks' speech at the Second Annual Sacramento Court/Clergy Conference in California. Oaks, a member of the first-echelon the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, urged his listeners to tune out extremist voices on either side.

He preached a view not of an opaque wall between church and state, but a "curtain" that allows "the passage of light and love and mutual support." But he also said that county clerks -- all but saying Kim Davis' name -- need to put aside their own beliefs and perform their sworn duties.

Nice olive branch, don't ya think? But the Associated Press version makes it sound like a p.r. strategy, inserting commentary into what was supposed to be a news report:

The speech marked another landmark moment in the conservative religion's transformation from a faith that frowned on gays and lesbians to one becoming more welcoming and compassionate, albeit in small steps that may seem nominal to outsiders.
As with the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis, the conservative Mormons are trying to assert a softer position in society, while holding firm inside the church to its own doctrines against gay marriage and homosexual activity.

This story is almost like a candy store for media critics like myself. First, we have the LDS Church called "conservative" -- the word is used three times in this story -- without explaining what that means. Social? Cultural? Political? Theological?

The article also calls the talk a big sign of "transformation," as if the church is about to change its basic beliefs. It's odd that AP invokes Francis, who is likewise prodding the Catholic Church toward a gentler attitude without anything like a transformation.  


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