Journalism

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Dear Washington Post editors: Why was National Cathedral security so tight during Muslim prayers?

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Over the past few days, I have had quite a few people ask me what I thought of the first-ever Muslim prayer service held inside the vault of the Washington National Cathedral. Would GetReligion be "covering" that? 

My response, of course, was whether they were asking for my personal take on this event, as an Orthodox Christian, or for my take on the media coverage of the event, which is what GetReligion is all about? Most meant the former, which isn't all that relevant to what we do here on this blog. Thus, let me offer a thought or two about the Washington Post coverage of the event, which ran under this headline: "Washington Cathedral’s first Muslim prayer service interrupted by heckler."

Your GetReligionistas rarely critique reporters by name, since we think editors also play crucial roles in the final product that ends up in print or on the air. However, in this case I'd like to note that it was interesting, and I think wise, that the Post editors assigned veteran foreign correspondent Pamela Constable to this story. She has years of experience in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is also known as the author of the book, "Fragments of Grace: My Search for Meaning in the Strife of South Asia."

The information that made it into the story was solid, although at several points I wanted to know more -- such as the actual doctrinal content of the sermon scholar Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s U.S. ambassador. In each case, I found myself wondering if these vague spots were the result of editing or the values of editors in the newsroom.


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CNN offers readers an atheist veteran, smiling down from heaven after his suffering ends

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CNN offers readers an atheist veteran, smiling down from heaven after his suffering ends

If anything has changed, over the 10 years-plus your GetReligionistas have been doing what we do, then it has been the number of questions we hear from readers about that blurring line between basic news writing and commentary.

At first we tried to ignore this, saying that we just write about hard news -- period. Eventually, this rising tide of journalistic confusion became impossible to ignore, in part because readers kept asking us about it.

So what we have here is a perfect example, a CNN feature under the headline, "Soldier broken by war silenced by death." A longtime GetReligion reader who closely follows atheist issues sent it in, basically asking, "What the heck?" or words to that effect. I agree that this is a strange one.

For starters, this article was located in the U.S. news section and it is not flagged as an analysis piece. Yet, right in the lede, the writer -- Moni Basu -- breaks into first-person voice and frames the story in terms of direct contacts with the subject, paralyzed Iraq War veteran Tomas Young. First person? That would normally mean that this is a column, right?


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Associated Press feature says Hanukkah is beginning to look a lot like Christmas

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It's gone way beyond old-timey "Hanukkah Bushes" decorated like Christmas trees. Now, reports the Associated Press, Hanukkah includes items like Kippah Kantor, Mensch on a Bench, house decorations, even boxes of Hanukkah chocolates.

"Pinterest and Etsy are loaded with blue-and-white Hanukkah crafts like wreaths and stockings," says the deftly written feature for the holiday, which starts this year at sundown Dec. 16. "There are Hanukkah greeting cards, cookie cutters, and even tree ornaments shaped like the three symbols -- Stars of David, menorahs and dreidels -- that scream 'Hanukkah!' amid a sea of holiday merchandise adorned with Christmas trees and Santas."

The story's Star (of David) is the Mensch on a Bench doll, imitating the Yule-themed Elf on the Shelf. As AP relates, creator Neal Hoffman raised $22,000 on Kickstarter last year; now he's producing 50,000 Mensches for stores like Target and Toys R Us. I recognized a South Florida news station on a collection of TV reports Hoffman linked from his website.

Oy. The traditional eight nights of quiet family gatherings -- those are starting to look like the Ghost of Hanukkah Past. Maybe Steven Spielberg's next movie should be Dreidels of a Lost Art. Or, as tmatt once quipped, "It's beginning to look a lot like Hanukkah." 

But as a rabbi tells AP, it's not the first time Jews have drawn from the surrounding culture. He says latkes, the potato pancakes that are a favorite Hanukkah treat, come from eastern Europe. The dreidel itself comes from Germany, he adds.

But why Hanukkah, a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar? For answers, AP turns to someone who's written a whole book on the holiday:


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Dear Baltimore Sun editors: Concerning your MIA U.S. Catholic bishops coverage

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It's logical, if you stop and think about it. Day after day, week after week, month after month, your GetReligionistas focus our time and efforts on news that is published in the mainstream press.

Note: This is news that is PUBLISHED in newspapers, wire services, websites, etc. As opposed to what? News that is NOT published? Precisely.

We do have our "Got news?" thing, which is when we note that something really interesting is happening somewhere in America or the world and the big, elite media (as opposed to, let's say, specialty websites) haven't noticed it yet. Readers send us notes about that kind of thing all the time.

That helps. But let's face it: It's hard to critique coverage that doesn't exist.

With that in mind, let's consider this week's Baltimore Sun coverage of the meetings -- in Baltimore, of course -- of the U.S. Catholic bishops.


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Pod people: More on Mormon church founder Joseph Smith's 40 wives and the media's delayed bandwagon

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Pod people: More on Mormon church founder Joseph Smith's 40 wives and the media's delayed bandwagon

My "big news report card" this week on media coverage of the Mormon church acknowledging that founder Joseph Smith had up to 40 wives drew a humorous response from Daniel Burke, editor of CNN's "Belief Blog".

"Is there a curve?" Burke asked on Twitter, joking that it wasn't fair to "compare hacks" like him to The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein and the Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack.

Stack replied that it bugged her that the Mormon essay wasn't seen as big news until the Times reported on it, but she said Goodstein did a good job.

As my post noted, Stack reported on Smith's multiple wives three weeks ago, followed quickly by The Associated Press. 

But most news organizations jumped on the story only after The New York Times published the story on its front page earlier this week.

Over at Religion News Service, the delayed media bandwagon also perplexed Mormon blogger Jana Riess, who wrote a very GetReligion-esque post about it (there's a lot of that going around this week).

 

 

 


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Amen to former GetReligionista's question: Why'd a Muslim NBA player skip the national anthem?

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You can take the journalist out of GetReligion.

But apparently, you can't take GetReligion out of the journalist.

Mark Kellner, a former contributor to our esteemed website, now covers faith news as a national reporter for the Deseret News.

This week, Kellner called on his experience as a holy ghostbuster.

The top of the Deseret News report:

He did. Until he said he didn't. Either way, the pregame actions of Dion Waiters, a guard with the Cleveland Cavaliers in Wednesday's game in Salt Lake City, have focused attention on whether or not Islam allows adherents to participate in patriotic rituals — and why initial media reports didn't ask that question.
The game, in which Utah Jazz small forward Gordon Hayward scored a buzzer-beating shot to win the game 102-100, began with a bit of drama when Waiters, coming off a suspension, didn't make it to courtside during the playing of the national anthem.
Reporter Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group initially quoted Waiters as saying he skipped the anthem because the athlete "was just acting in accordance with what he feels his religious beliefs are."

From there, Kellner noted that the Ohio story changed over the next 24 hours, with the reporter citing "miscommunication" between the player and himself and Waiters taking to Twitter to declare his patriotism.

 


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Nurses and Ebola: MSNBC story tells a story of faith and courage

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"MSNBC can do a decent religion story? Miracles do happen," a friend of GR said in a tip about an article on nurses volunteering to fight Ebola.

And the tipster is right. For a company whose founder called church a waste of time -- as Bill Gates did in 1997 -- MSNBC has produced a remarkably sensitive, respectful story on nurses' preparations to work in Ebola-stricken Liberia.

The article packs a lot in its 1,289 words. It updates us on the quarantine controversy -- the rush of states to isolate medical workers on their return from treating Ebola patients. It's full of touching personal details on the two women who are about to leave for western Africa. And it presents an unflinching, unapologetic look at the faith that drives them to risk their lives.

MSNBC's writer clearly liked Megan Vitek, her friend Sara Phillips and their well-wishers. She notes that Vitek's home, and that of her friends, is dubbed the "Scooby Doo Mansion." She tells of Vitek visiting an apartment building and greeting an inflatable Headless Horseman dummy. It's a clever device to show the contrast with where she's going. 

Here's the lede:

Before she left town on Sunday, there were a few things that Megan Vitek, a nurse, needed to get done: Return a big serving bowl to a relative, eat a scone from her favorite coffee shop in Washington, D.C., and pick up 25 pairs of goggles to protect her team from Ebola in Liberia.

But Vitek isn't cast as a Pollyanna or proselytizer. She is instead portrayed as humble, matter-of-fact, perhaps pushing away the enormity of what she's about to confront:


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Big news report card: Mormon church acknowledges founder Joseph Smith's many wives

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Nearly three weeks ago, the Salt Lake Tribune's Godbeat pro Peggy Fletcher Stack reported on a new Mormon essay concerning church founder Joseph Smith taking multiple wives.

A few days after that (right after reporting on Mormon undergarments), The Associated Press jumped on the story.

But not until this week did The New York Times put the story on its front page with this headline:

It's Official: Mormon Founder Had Many Wives

Apparently, when the Times declares news "official," it becomes much bigger news — because suddenly the story is everywhere.

It's time for another "big news report card," and I'm in a relatively generous mood when it comes to today's grades.


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Giant, smelly snails in Florida: Could there really be a religion angle to this story?

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This story stinks. 

I mean, it really stinks.

But that's no commentary — at all — on the quality of journalism. 

Anytime a major newspaper — in this case, the Tampa Bay Times — can cover giant, smelly snails and religion at the same time, far be it from GetReligion to turn up our nose.

Way up high, this hardly seems like a Godbeat tale:

MIAMI — At a little-known government laboratory in South Florida, they keep the snails under lock and key. Sure, any escape would be sloooooow. But giant African land snails are such a threat to humans that the rules say they have to be kept locked away, just in case.
The aptly-named snails can grow to be more than 6 inches long. Wherever they go they leave a trail of smelly excrement. They eat 500 kinds of plants. They produce up to 500 eggs two or three times a year, and because they're hermaphrodites they don't need a mate. If they aren't getting enough lime from the soil for their shells, they will gobble the stucco off the side of a house.
They also carry a parasite that can infect humans with meningitis.

But keep reading, and religion enters the picture — via Africa.


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