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A few days ago, we looked at the really bad story Time put out on female priests. It was just a bad story, no way around it. It had spelling errors, usage errors, inaccuracies and factual errors. It used weasel words. It managed to not find a single proponent of the historic Christian position despite being over 1,200 words long. So we weren’t the only folks who thought the article was problematic.
Everyone claims that they don’t like negative ads but the truth is that they’re an effective way for someone to gain ground against a political opponent. So usually it’s the political challenger who goes negative against the incumbent. But this being the crazy year it is, more incumbents are vulnerable and going negative. One of those is Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla.
That’s all I could think of when I read this line in a Fortune magazine article about why we’ve seen no lawsuits from Facebook or its founder Mark Zuckerberg despite all the likelihood that “The Social Network,” compelling as I expect it to be, is based more on fiction than fact:
Here inside the only Beltway that matters, the insiders, experts and politicos are going through one of their favorite rituals — a season of fevered discussions about the latest Bob Woodward book offering inside gossip about all the president’s people. As always, these holy days begin with a series of A1 excerpts from said volume in the Washington Post.
Apparently Archbishop Charles Chaput struck a nerve with Mark Silk, professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America.
CNN.com published 10 — count ‘em, 10 — articles or video clips yesterday about Bishop Eddie Long. If you don’t know who Long is, then you’re like the almost all Americans were one week ago, before the media blitz began with revelations that four young men at Long’s Atlanta-area megachurch were filing lawsuits claiming the minister molested them.
I have read a lot of Michael Lewis over the years — at least five of his books that I can remember, not to mention countless articles. His real gift as journalist is a knack for pure, unadulterated readability. The fact he’s able to write about esoteric subjects such as baseball statistics and credit default swaps and make them both understandable and wildly popular is no mean feat. Believe me, I’m envious.
Buzz words around the Religion Newswriters Association’s conference in Denver yesterday included “broccoli,” “ice cream” and “puppies” after some discussion about how journalists can get better at developing their precious online audiences.
