Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Someone suggested I take a look at the four stories the Washington Post ran on the Sanford scandal yesterday. Only problem was that when I went online to find those stories, I found 60 (sixty!) items dated June 25 about the scandal. And 143 items so far this week. These include articles, blog posts, hosted discussions, photos and even audio and video. And don’t forget the poorly written columns.
I’ve confessed before my unfortunate love of a good scandal — and a good sex scandal all the more. A couple of days ago, I had gotten a tip about what would happen with regard to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s confession of adultery. And as I read accounts of his groundbreaking press conference (on Twitter, yes), I reacted with delight. I’d hoped for something very dramatic and I’d gotten it. A few days ago I read the following C.S. Lewis quote over at Gene Edward Veith’s blog:
One of the doctrines of this weblog is that to understand how ordinary people live their lives, journalists need to “get religion.” You don’t have to force faith into these stories. In most cases, it’s already there.
A week ago, I returned from a long, fast trip that ended up in Bangalore and New Delhi, where I had the sobering opportunity to discuss religion writing in the context of modern India with several audiences of journalists, old and young, and a collection of academics and politicos.
Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church probably 25 years ago and they are still routinely contacted by members who, shall we say, encourage them to be careful with what they say about the church. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have quite a few positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.
I was toiling as a reporter in the God-forsaken bowels of Southern California when my managing editor sent out an email in response to the 2004 presidential election. The other editors hadn’t realized it, he explained, but religion was really important to a lot of Americans. The newspaper wanted to dedicate a reporter to the religion beat.
If you are interested in God and also in blogs that are about religion and God, then you are probably familiar with The God Blog, which is operated by the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. And if you are familiar with The God Blog, that means you are familiar with the work of the young religion-beat specialist Brad A. Greenberg.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting much of my news about Iran from Twitter. This weekend, many of the Tehran-related items were about Neda, a protesting woman who was killed with a shot to the chest. I have chosen not to watch, but there are graphic videos of the death. As those of us outside Iran are struggling to understand all of the social, political and religious nuances at play there, I must comment Robin Wright’s article in Time about the death’s consequences to the struggle there:
