Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Suppose American politics were a colas war, with conservatives representing Coca Cola and liberals Pepsi. A reporter tells you that a top presidential candidate drinks neither brand. That would be a real insight, right?
In a story about the right-to-life movement, reporter Nicholas Riccardi of the Los Angeles Times left readers with the impression that an individual human embryo is not, well, a human:
Newsweek‘s cover story this week about the roots of Rudy Giuliani’s worldview was like a one-sided, incomplete version of 1985′s Heaven Help Us. Both depicted Catholic schools in the 1950s and ’60s in New York City as authoritarian and rigid. But in contrast to the movie, which pointed out that many priests were holy, compassionate, and down to earth, Newsweek stressed that parochial schools were a breeding ground for autocrats like “America’s Mayor”:
Judging by The Sunday Times of London, a reader might conclude that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was a smart man’s Thomas More or Thomas Beckett. Blair, who is expected to convert to Catholicism, said in an interview that his Christianity “played a hugely important role” during his decade-long tenure, but he feared saying so lest he be known as a “nutter.” As Dipesh Gadher reported,
Over the summer, Pope Benedict XVI allowed priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass without receiving permission from their local bishop. Reporters naturally have written follow-up stories about the revival of the ancient service. So far two storylines seem to have emerged: Why the interest in the Tridentine Mass? and Are Catholics (especially young Catholics) actually flocking to the service?
Five years ago, political scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio wrote a fascinating story about the media’s failure to cover the rise to power of “secularists” in the Democratic Party. Bolce and De Maio studied The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times between 1990 and 2000. While the papers ran 682 stories about the GOP and evangelical or fundamentalist Christians between 1990 and 2000, they ran only 43 stories identifying secularists with the Democratic Party.
At the risk of not offending GR readers and generating few comments from said group, I offer a qualified endorsement of two stories about Rudy Giuliani’s Catholicism. A recent cover story in The New Republic linked Giuliani’s political outlook to his education in Catholic social teaching. Meanwhile, the latest Newsweek reports that Giuliani’s pro-choice stand will continue to draw outspoken opposition from traditional Catholics. While neither story offers sufficient perspective, each grasps an important truth about Giuliani: his Catholic upbringing continues to define him.
The evangelicals — why, they’re cracking up! They’re so over the Republican Party! They’re sick of hearing about abortion and gay marriage! They’ve matured! They’re concerned about global warming, Darfur, and poverty! They’re warming up to Hillary and Obama! Truly, a new day has dawned!
For various reasons, journalists have rarely done even an adequate job covering the decline and fall of the African-American family. The share of black babies born out of wedlock in the last four decades has soared to around 70 percent from 25 percent.
