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After several days of silence, I wanted to let GetReligion readers know that, yes, we have been following all of the Pat Robertson news. The MSM coverage has, however, been rather straightforward and there was not much to comment on.
This morning’s Washington Post contained an example of something I believe we need to see more in America’s newspapers. Karl Vick of the Washington Post Foreign Service details in an A1 story a current hot issue in Muslim communities regarding the ground swelling of support for the return of a caliphate to unite believers of Islam.
Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a profile of Kate Michelman. I’m not sure if they were trying to push her new book or push her appearance before the Alito hearings today, but they were pushing something. If NARAL Pro-Choice America itself had written the piece, it probably would have had more perspective.
This is slightly outside of the normal media coverage we follow, but I couldn’t help but notice that ghosts and religious terminology abound in recent stories about author James Frey. This is the man who wrote an exaggerated or possibly even fictional account of a drug- and alcohol-addled life of crime and successfully passed it off as his factual memoir A Million Little Pieces, which sold a gazillion copies and recently was selected for Oprah’s Book Club.
OK, it’s time for another edition of “You Write the Lead.” So you are a reporter for a mainstream newspaper in North America and you are sent to cover this rally of Iranian pilgrims headed to Mecca. What is the lead? Click here for exerpts from the text. (Hat tip to Rod Dreher at the Dallas Morning News editorial blog.)
Many of you faithful readers have been notifying us about this Wall Street Journal article published Saturday (for non-WSJ subscribers, this article is thankfully available to all) on the firing of former Wheaton College assistant professor Joshua Hochschild, who was quite popular with students and highly skilled, before and after his conversion to Catholicism.
Young master Pulliam previously praised the Los Angeles Times‘ Stephanie Simon for her Nov. 29 piece that profiled a number of women who had abortions at a clinic in Arkansas.
In her weekend column, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell offered a gentle defense of the newspaper’s work on the religion beat. It is particularly interesting for her to take a look at the topic, because of her years working at Religion News Service and Newhouse News Service. To say that she has some authority on this topic is an understatement.
As I get hyped up for this weekend’s Colts vs. Steelers game, The Indianapolis Star managed to remind me that NFL players are as human as any of us. They make mistakes, they have problems and they need guidance from above.
