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Ever since Muslim extremists commandeered passenger aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon — with another plane missing its target only because its passengers fought back — Americans have been very interested in Muslim extremism. Each terror attack committed by Muslim extremists since then has only fueled the curiosity and thirst for knowledge more.
Via the indispensible Deacon’s Bench blog at Beliefnet, I learned that Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s latest criticisms of the New York Times are getting some media coverage. Not in The Times, but the local CBS affiliate has noticed.
There are puff pieces and then there are puff pieces. But this Saturday Beliefs article from the Los Angeles Times borders on well-disguised press release.
Pop singer Katy Perry and comedian Russell Brand married this weekend in India. Katy Perry began her career as a singer in the Contemporary Christian Music market so I was a bit surprised to read that it was a traditional Hindu ceremony. Maybe. I read that in the Washington Post, the Boston Herald, Entertainment Weekly, ABC News, Telegraph, Daily Mail, New York Daily News, MTV, and so on and so forth (this is a story of international importance). Here’s a snippet from a typical news report:
Can’t get enough commentary on Juan Williams’ firing from NPR? Love to talk about tea party Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell? Want to hear a GetReligionista commend the New York Times? Then check out our latest podcast here. Guided by the soothing voice and insightful questions of Todd Wilken, we discuss all these and more on Crossroads.
Well, NPR’s decision to fire Juan Williams is going over like a lead balloon. NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepherd calls it a “public relations nightmare.” Before we get into some of the news coverage of the firing, one huge thing needs clarification.
This might be the time to raise a frequent GetReligion complaint up to the level of common law: If journalists play the God card in their ledes, they really owe the reader some basic information about the significant role that religion plays in the story.
Late last night, NPR fired senior news analyst Juan Williams. On Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” where he also contributes, there was a discussion about something that had happened on “The View” the previous week. Apparently Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar flipped out when guest O’Reilly said that “Muslims” had perpetrated the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They walked off the set in disgust.
As you would imagine, the whole Rand Paul affair is a pretty big deal at the Louisville Courier-Journal. In fact, the newspaper’s lengthy profile of the candidate — paralleling a Jack Conway profile of similar length — began like this:
