Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Is there some kind of “enthusiasm meter” that journalists consult to judge the popularity of a pope? That’s what one reader asked, sending along this Associated Press story. Here’s the headline:
There are times when the BBC is beyond parody. It is so relentlessly awful, biased and reflexively p.c. that many viewers become inured to its excesses. Yet Orla Guerin’s report from Pakistan is quite extraordinary — even for the BBC.
I have been unbelievable swamped all day, working on final grades for the fall term at the Washington Journalism Center. That’s doesn’t matter to GetReligion readers, of course, but it does mean that I have not been plugged into the World Wide Web all day.
Well this is exciting news. The Epistle to the Hebrews, long a highly regarded part of the Christian canon, has also long been shrouded in mystery.
The Life Style section of the Washington Post has an interesting and well crafted story entitled “Rethinking the ink: Laser Tattoo removal gains popularity,” that reports on the flourishing tattoo removal industry. It discusses the current rage for tattoos among the American middle classes. What sets this story apart are the vignettes from those undergoing the painful and expensive procedure to have their body art removed.
Many GetReligion readers will recall that I grew up in Texas as the son of a Southern Baptist pastor. I spent my teen years in Port Arthur, which was and is a rather hellish refinery town on Lake Sabine, on the Texas-Louisiana border. It’s best known as the hometown of Janis Joplin and, trust me, I have always understood where she caught the blues.
Yesterday there was big news related to the Higgs boson. That’s the theoretical particle that some scientists believe plays a role in the fabric of the universe. But the story really caught my attention because almost every article referred to it as the “God particle.” So, for instance, here’s the Washington Post:
We have received many, many tips about a women priests news story that is bad even by the normally abysmal standards of women priest news stories.
I first learned about the home-improvement chain Lowe’s pulling its advertising from a Muslim reality show when I came across a Religion News Service report over the weekend. The subject interested me, in part, because I wrote a recent Christianity Today story on corporate boycotts.
