Journalism

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All in a day's vocation

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The other day I wrote about mainstream media coverage of a religion story involving my church body, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. I wrote about the cancellation of the LCMS’ only nationally-syndicated radio program (“Issues, Etc.”) and sudden firing of its host and producer in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last month. I also attended a worship service in St. Louis to pray for the men who were fired, ate some bratwurst at the fundraising dinner following the service and took part in a demonstration the next day at church headquarters.


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Who speaks for Islam? Good question

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A long, long, time ago — before that Pope Benedict XVI person came to town and took over the lives of your GetReligionistas (with some help from a controversial sect in Texas) — the Los Angeles Times ran a short educational feature entitled, “Muslim true/false — What you think you know about them is likely wrong — and that’s dangerous.”


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Lutherans with Issues

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I had an intriguing GetReligion-related experience last week. A religion reporter wrote about a news story that I’m personally involved in. As a reporter, it is always interesting to watch another reporter in action. But when you actually care about the story involved, everything is taken to a new level.


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Baltimore: Peace, unity and gunshots

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Anyone who knows anything about Baltimore — whether through news or through entertainment — knows that our inner-city neighborhoods are plagued by violence, with young, African-American males almost always on both sides of the guns.


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Polygamy in context

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Last week we discussed the need for reporters to distinguish between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In the comments, reader Michael Nielsen — a Mormon social psychologist — pointed us toward an op-ed he wrote for the Salt Lake Tribune that argued for improved information about the relationship of polygamy to the LDS church:


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Media circus, maybe

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While papal coverage dominated religion news last week, the saga involving the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints continued. I’m still digging through all the recent updates and analyses, but I wonder what readers think of this headline:


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B16: Pope calls for doctrinal faithfulness

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Pope Benedict XVI may be in his 80s, but he keeps a schedule that is tiring just to observe. There have been so many appointments, so many meetings, so many worship services. One of the significant events was a prayer service with representatives from other Christian church bodies. And as dramatic as people may think his Regensburg speech was, his comments at St. Joseph’s in Yorkville gave the gathered much to chew on.


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B16: Heartland watches from afar

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I get the sense that the news reporters in the heartland are viewing the pope’s visit as less significant than reporters on the East Coast. An obvious reason for this is that the pope’s schedule doesn’t take him far from New York City or Washington, D.C. For example, The Indianapolis Star buried its only story on the pope a couple of days ago — from the Associated Press — on its back page.


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