Journalism

The Hot Dog theory of history

It is touching to see that in spite of everything that has happened over the course of the Twentieth century, there is still a belief in the Whig theory of history — of the inevitable march of progress. One can see this philosophical framework of man’s “move forward into broad, sunlit uplands” in this story on gender violence from the AP’s New Hampshire reporter.


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Another visit with the usual "ex-gay" suspects

It’s a question that I always know I will hear after a lecture on the American model of the press and its emphasis on balance, fairness and the need to cover both sides of controversial stories — which requires journalists to find solid, articulate representatives of the arguments on both sides.


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Polish heavy metal clashes with mysterious blasphemy law

On some levels, the legal drama unfolding in Poland these days could be called the Son of Pussy Riot media storm. Alas, the media coverage of the case of heavy-metal man Adam Darski and his ripped of Bible will, in my opinion, rise or fall depending on whether journalists ask the same kinds of questions in Poland that they needed to ask in Russia.


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Risking lives to save souls in Mexico

Before I left on a mission trip south of the U.S. border this past spring, a Facebook friend was so kind as to post a State Department warning for all of us “crazy enough to travel to Mexico.”


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News Corp. discovers the atonement is child abuse

Did you know the atonement was a form of divine child abuse? Spend some time in the more recherche corners of academic theology and you will come across this theory. The 1989 essay “For God So Loved the World?” by feminist liberation theologians Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker popularized the phrase that has since filtered down to the popular press.


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Calm down about the Vatican and James Bond Skyfall

It was three years ago that I read a really interesting story in the Christian Science Monitor about why the Vatican’s “famously staid semi-official mouthpiece” was suddenly doing movie reviews. The reporter explained that Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the paper to discuss cultural issues.


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When Worlds Collide II: Scientology and the Nation of Islam

The 25 October 2012 issue of The New Republic carries a story entitled “Thetans and Bowties” that I can’t quite get my head round. By this I do not mean I do not understand what the article says – but I am having a hard time classifying its species.


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