Journalism

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Jimmy Carter calmly faces death, for reasons that some scribes still find mysterious

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Whatever you think of the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the odds are good that those views have now blended into some kind of appreciation for some of the work accomplished during his long and complex ex-presidency. Note the double use of the word "some" in that sentence.

However, even the most negative evaluations of his work usually show some respect for what Carter has done with a Bible in one hand and a hammer in the other, working on countless projects at home and abroad to help the least of these.

Carter's Baptist beliefs have, of course, continued to evolve, moving him to the doctrinal left on most moral and cultural issues. But there are still times when you can hear him arguing with himself on these matters. Soon after he left the White House, I interviewed him and watched him interact with a group of Lutheran young people meeting in Denver. He began crying as he described the frustrations he felt trying to place any kinds of legal limits on abortion in America, but he kept trying because he knew what science said about when life begins, as well as what his faith told him to do.

Like him or not, Carter is the man who made history by pulling millions of evangelical Protestants into the political arena, either to support him or to oppose him.

This brings me to the mainstream media coverage of Carter's press conference dealing with his current battle with cancer, including small melanoma cancers in his brain. Watch the video at the top of this post and then think about this Twitter comment by Sarah Pulliam Bailey of The Washington Post (who, of course, used to write for GetReligion):


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5Q+1 interview: Melissa Binder on the thriving Godbeat in America's least-religious city

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Melissa Binder is rocking the Godbeat in one of the unlikeliest of places -- Portland, Ore.

"Who else is going to tell you what religion in the rest of the United States might look like in 50 years?" The Oregonian writer responds when asked about covering faith and values in America's least-religious city.

Binder's journalism talents earned her prestigious national awards even before her graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013. Besides gaining photography, writing and digital news experience on campus, she interned for major news organizations such as the CNN Wire, the Charlotte Observer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

After graduation, she joined The Oregonian as a neighborhood news reporter covering parts of Portland before transitioning to the newspaper's newly revived religion beat less than a year ago. 

In introducing herself to Portland readers, she cited her own faith:

I'm interested in this beat for reasons beyond intellectual curiosity. Belief is central to individual identity for many of you. As a person of faith, I get that. I grew up in a North Carolina church (quite literally — I attended a Christian elementary and middle school in the same building where my family attended regular services). You can find me with my husband in the front row at Imago Dei Community in Southeast Portland almost every Sunday morning.


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Jihadi girl power: New York Times tells how teens were seduced by ISIS

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It reads almost like a Greek tragedy when a New York Times newsfeature tells of three teens who suddenly left their homes in the United Kingdom for the Syria-based Islamic State.

In starting with the ending, the Times makes it seem chillingly inevitable. But with its incredibly lengthy, 6,000-word narrative, the paper shows how the girls might have been stopped. Yes, apparently religion plays a role in this. Shocking.

Khadiza Sultana, Shamima Begum and Amira Abase are, of course, only three of the estimated 550 girls and women who leave western nations for the ruthless jihadi territory. And other mainstream media have dealt with the topic before, like a searing piece in The Guardian last October.

But for its telling details and the anatomy of the girls' radicalization, this Times feature stands out. It does have a few places for improvement, but we'll get to that later.

Mustering two writers and two researchers for this article, the article blends narrative with analysis, personal details with an attempt at the whys. It quotes educators, activists and family members. It reveals how the girls' school and police failed their families.

And it shows how they and other jihadi women can affect the rest of us:


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Media org wants to cover Bible Belt 'culture' better, so it lays off religion writer — huh!?

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Face it: When corporate bean counters lay off journalists under the guise of improving journalism, the justifications are always going to sound idiotically silly.

Enter the Alabama Media Group.

Poynter.org reports:

Several employees at Alabama Media Group have been laid off, the Advance-owned regional media company announced Tuesday.
In a memo to staffers announcing the cuts, Alabama Media Group executive Michelle Holmes said between five and nine positions will be eliminated in each of the company’s main sites across the state.
“We know many of you will say goodbye to trusted colleagues and friends,” Holmes wrote. “We wish the best for those who leave our organization today and thank them for their dedication and good work.”
In a release, Alabama Media Group said the cuts will be accompanied by an increased focus on core areas of coverage including breaking news, high school and college sports and Alabama culture. 

So the Alabama Media Group wants to put an increased focus on covering "Alabama culture?"

Alabama, where 46 percent of residents attend religious services every week (ranking that Deep South state third out of 50).

Alabama, where 57 percent of residents describe themselves as "very religious" (again, No. 3 among the 50 states).

Obviously, the best way to bolster coverage of "Alabama culture" is to, you know, lay off a talented, seasoned, hard-working religion writer. 

Right?

Wait — huh!!!???:


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Icing on the cake: This time, Associated Press more properly frames same-sex wedding dispute

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Way back in January, I criticized an Associated Press report on Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.

I argued that the AP improperly framed that story by reporting that Phillips "refused to serve" a lesbian couple.

AP's latest story — on a court decision in Phillips' case last week — does a better job of framing the issue in the lede:

DENVER (AP) — A suburban Denver baker who would not make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple cannot cite his Christian beliefs in refusing them service because it would lead to discrimination, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
The three-judge panel said in a 66-page ruling that Colorado's anti-discrimination law does not prevent baker Jack Phillips from believing what he wants but that if he wants his business open to the public, he is prohibited "from picking and choosing customers based on their sexual orientation."

Yes, this lede, like the last one, refers to the baker "refusing them service," but it provides more needed context.

Moreover, the story does a nice job of presenting Phillips' point of view — including his contention that it's making a same-sex wedding cake, not serving a gay couple, that concerns him:


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Post offers faith-free report on alleged rape at famous pre-Ivy boarding school

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Obviously, pre-Ivy League prep schools such as St. Paul's in Concord, N.H., have their share of traditions. One of the buzz-worthy and truly distressing Washington Post stories of the week so far focused on the tradition of the "senior salute" at this elite campus, in which senior men compete to see who can sleep with as many younger girls as possible.

How elite? The Post report notes that a year on the 2,000-acre campus costs $55,000-plus and other media outlets put the figure at more than $60,000. Alumni include legions of executives, Pulitzer winners, three major candidates for the presidency, ambassadors, various members of Congress, Secretary of State John Kerry and legions of clergy, including a former Episcopal Church presiding bishop. Oh, and Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.

The chapel is really beautiful, too, which is fitting for a school with a strong religious history. Hold that thought. 

So what happened when senior Owen Laurie met with that 15-year-old girl in an attempt to add her name to his online "score" spreadsheet? Laurie insists that he did not sleep with her. Drawing on information from The Concord Monitor, the Associated Press, The Boston Globe and other sources, the Post noted:

According to the affidavit obtained by the Monitor, Labrie sent the freshman girl a “senior salute” e-mail asking her to “hook up” with him four days before graduation. She initially declined, but then agreed on the understanding that “hook up” referred to kissing. Two days later, on May 30, 2014, Labrie allegedly took the girl to the top of the school’s math and science building.
They kissed, then Labrie allegedly began to pull off her underwear. She resisted several times and twice told him “no,” according to the affidavit.

Laurie denies having sex, but the sexual-assault nurse at the local hospital claims otherwise. The media description of the critical encounter also includes a strange and fascinating statement:


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Time to tackle a question: Does BuzzFeed do basic, hard-news religion news or not?

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This past year, I had a student in Washington who was really into BuzzFeed, for many reasons, including lots of valid ones.

Like it or not, she said, the mainstream press was going to have to come to terms with key elements of the BuzzFeed business model, especially the idea of breaking stories down into humorous and entertaining listicles that force profitable mouse clicks. This concept, she added, could save the news industry by helping young readers develop habits of news consumption.

I asked: But what about basic news? How do these digital-era concepts apply to the coverage of daily hard news about topics that, like it or not, are essential to life and public discourse? Her reply was blunt: That doesn't matter since young readers won't read those kinds of news stories anyway.

I was also worried about continuing efforts to erase the line between news coverage and editorial writing, in the snarky new listicles, first-person features and in the waves of "reported blogging" pieces that are spreading through the websites of conventional newsrooms. Oh yes, and things like the Twitter blast at the top of this post.

Then there was that famous statement by BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith (see my post "From old Kellerism to new BuzzFeed") that bluntly stated:

“We firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides.”

Smith later said, in a Hugh Hewitt interview (transcript here) explained his newsroom's open celebration of the 5-4 Obergefell decision:


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Pope Francis and abuse victims: Washington Post pro shows how to report

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To harp on a favorite theme of mine, you need experienced specialists to cover religion news. Today's case in point is a positive one: the Washington Post's in-depth piece on Catholics who want Pope Francis to address clerical sex abuse during his upcoming U.S. visit.

Rather than relying cheap shots from pressure groups, the Post's Godbeat veteran Michelle Boorstein draws her sources from Catholic authorities or those who have had direct experience with the abuse problem -- some as victims. Their viewpoints range from support to opposition, and the usually neglected points in between.

In the 1,800-word article, victims of priests confess their hopes of pressing a single point to Francis during his September visit to Philadelphia: Do more to root out sex abuse and bring justice to the abused. But the piece adopts an attitude that is not skeptical but adversarial.

The Post gives about half the story to John Salveson, an abuse survivor who has been pressing church authorities for answers off and on since the early 1980s. It reports Salveson's initial letters to his bishop, which got non-answers; then his part in a class-action lawsuit against his diocese, which failed because of a statute of limitations; then his creation of a pressure group, "which advocates for longer criminal statutes of limitations and expanded civil windows for victims to sue."

The article also quotes others, in varying tones of rage and hope.

For rage, we have the father of a deceased victim: "All he does is talk. . . . You think this guy ever worked a day in his life? How could he have empathy for people like us?”  

For hope, another victim: “I think he’s a rock star. He really seems to be someone who genuinely seems to want to get to the bottom of this and stop it.”


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Some crucial faith facts, in New York Times report on the young ISIS honeymooners

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When telling stories involving people motivated by faith, it is crucial for readers to be able to hear the voices of these individuals describing their beliefs and motivations. But what happens when it is either impossible to interview the key people, perhaps for legal reasons, or they have no intention of answering questions from journalists or anyone else?

This is where the Internet and, especially, forums linked to social media have become so important in this day and age. You can see how this works in a recent New York Times story, which centers on the latest shocking tale of young people from the American heartland who have been arrested while trying to flee the evils of America to join the Islamic state.

The story, this time, unfolds in Starkville, Miss., a university town in which the locals, as the Times team states in classic elite mode, "tend to be proud of Starkville’s relative tolerance." The key players are Muhammad Dakhlalla, a young man from an outgoing, community oriented Muslim family known as "a walking advertisement for Islam as a religion of tolerance and peace." His fiancé, 19-year-old Jaelyn Young, is an honor student, a cheerleader and a  recent convert to Islam. The two tried to marry as Muslims, but her father refused to grant his permission. Their plan was to say they were flying to Turkey on their honeymoon.

Obviously, legal authorities have been following their activities via email and social media. That leads to this brief, but revealing, exchange:

Ms. Young, who three years ago was broadcasting silly jokes on Twitter and singing the praises of the R&B singer Miguel, had more recently professed a desire to join the Islamic State, according to an F.B.I. agent’s affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. On July 17, the day after a young Muslim man in Chattanooga, Tenn., fatally shot five United States servicemen, Ms. Young rejoiced, the affidavit alleges, in an online message to an F.B.I. agent posing as a supporter of the Islamic State.
“Alhamdulillah,” she wrote, using the Arabic word of praise to God, “the numbers of supporters are growing.”


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