Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Shira Schoenberg of the Concord Monitor wrote an interesting story about a Jewish Orthodox politician. Or at least her story was interesting, fascinating even, about the ritual and personal aspects of Jason Bedrick’s faith.
Tim Townsend of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has won praise for his coverage of an excommunication dispute between a priest and six laymen at a church and Archbishop Raymond Burke. As Mollie noted, Townsend has explained to readers that the battle is not over any sexy theological or moral issues, but rather over church authority.
Last night, while watching the election returns from Super Tuesday roll in, I pined for the Democratic presidential contests of the 1970s.
Writing about church-state conflicts is not easy. What is the issue at hand? How does it affect ordinary people? Alas, two stories by the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post about a controversial legislative proposal failed to answer both questions adequately.
At its best, Get Religion is akin to what the Greenville Delta-Democrat Times was in the post-war white South: a rare publication that questions the establishment’s assumptions and reveals its sins of omission and commission.
Did you hear the one about the Super Bowl fans who crashed at the monastery? This is no joke. But it is an amusing, if unserious, story in the The New York Times.
I have a pet theory about the educational value of the printed page. Newspaper stories tell us what happened; books why it happened; and features stories a bit of both.
Stephanie Simon of The Los Angeles Times scored a coup: She interviewed young evangelicals who left their previous lives to live as monastics. Her story was rich with detail and nuance. But I wonder if she missed a major story.Simon introduced readers to five young adults, plus their children, who left their comfortable suburban homes for a spartan, communal one. As you may imagine, Simon described in great detail the travails and triumphs of such a radical life change. Here is how she depicted the decision by one of the families, the Porrett’s, to leave the house:
Every couple of years, journalists and pundits proclaim the death of the red-state/blue-state divide in American politics.
