Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
After reading stories about the New Hampshire election results last night, I remembered that 12 years ago Mark Penn and Dick Morris, two all-powerful pollsters for President Clinton, had discovered a remarkably effective polling technique.
A recent Miami Herald story on the Afro-Caribbean religious tradition Santeria is receiving high compliments from the Pagan-oriented Wild Hunt blog for avoiding sensationalism. The comments on the blog, which is run by Jason Pitzl-Waters, give a sense for what many misunderstood or less commonly known religious traditions feel when they are portrayed in the media.
I wrote last week about the death of two teenage girls at the hands, allegedly, of their Muslim father. Rod “Friend of this blog” Dreher now says that the girls’ death was an honor killing. Now The Dallas Morning News, the paper for which Dreher works, has written a tantalizing follow-up story. It quotes the sisters’ great aunt as saying that she believes the girls’ death was, in fact, an honor killing:
The headline in Saturday’s Detroit News brought the news that the “controversial” church of Scientology had paid $3.5 million for a prominent downtown building for office and outreach program use. The larger story is that Scientologists in Michigan are moving their headquarters and expanding to meet a greater demand and need for the church’s services.
On the TV right now, Chris Collingsworth of NBC is talking about the Washington Redskins and the belief among the players that they are playing in honor of the late superstar Sean Taylor and that he is still with them.
One of the many reasons why I am not the world’s best reporter is that I like to ruminate on events for a while before I write about them. In a 24-hour news business, this is not the best trait.
While I am not trying to turn this into a sports blog, we are in the bowls and playoff session — a series of secular holy days — and the topics keep coming up. Thus, I spend a really interesting hour the other day on the telephone with Washington Post sportswriter Kathy Orton, who will, apparently, be writing an ongoing feature at the “On Faith” weblog called “Praying Fields.”
If you are a Western reader, don’t be surprised if this Al Jazeera story on the increasing presence of radicals in Indonesia doesn’t fit your typical Associated Press or Reuters news story. But the cultural and religious presumptions provide insights are worth looking at briefly. Also buried within the story is a bit of news that probably could use some more reporting and explaining.
This is the time of year, of course, when news organizations post their Top 10 lists for the year. On the religion beat, the list that gets the most attention is the one produced by a poll of the members of the Religion Newswriters Association. Click here to see it’s announcement of the results.
