Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
What do you know! One of the newspapers in a region linked to the story of the monk formerly known as Jonah Paffhausen has noticed that he was raised — 12 whole days after being consecrated as an auxiliary bishop in Dallas — to the position of metropolitan (think archbishop) of the scandal-torn Orthodox Church in America.
Reader Bekah pointed us to a story in the Daily Mail with a religion-infused quote from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin:
The free speech story out of Utah involving the Church of Summum and its desire to gain legitimacy and prominence in part by placing monuments of its Seven Aphorisms in public parks is perplexing from a legal perspective. USA Today‘s Joan Biskupic notes that Supreme Court Justices were sent reaching for “dramatic, even fanciful, scenarios” to help understand the legal consequences of various possible rulings.
In my last post, I referred to the notion that many denominations or groups feel that press coverage of them is biased — or that they are particularly singled out for unflattering notice.
The other day I noted the one-sided story in the Los Angeles Times about a likable lesbian couple who live in an area that voted in support of Proposition 8, which defines marriage as a heterosexual union.
As most of you probably know, the New York Times has a Public Editor, Clark Hoyt. A veteran newsman, and only the third to serve in this position (created in 2003), Hoyt’s job, in a nutshell, is to (re)present the voice of the New York Times reader.
Probably the best example of how the mainstream media completely games the coverage of same-sex marriage is an article from the Los Angeles Times. “Election leaves gay couple feeling isolated in conservative bastion” is about these two heroic lesbians who opposed Proposition 8 while living in a conservative neighborhood in Riverside County.
The Chicago Tribune‘s version of the pew gap story that permeated news outlets last week focuses heavily on the slight percentage shifts in party preference among Catholics, white evangelicals, and “worshipers who attend church frequently.” The article’s focus on these three statistical categories emphasizes that a factor in President-elect Barack Obama’s victory was his slight improvement in the pews over the failed 2004 Democratic Nominee John Kerry. This runs contrary to the notion that Obama failed to close the pew gap.
So the protests against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of its support for Proposition 8 are continuing and receiving quite a bit of mainstream media coverage. Proposition 8 passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as an institution involving one man and one woman. Stories involve everything from Mormon churches being vandalized to large-scale protests in urban areas.
