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The cover of Time this week features a large image of Pope Benedict XVI with an American flag in the background. As I will try to show later, this is ironic, but for now it’s worth noting that the cover story is “Why the Pope Loves America.”
One of our standard criticisms at Get Religion is that reporters focus on politics to the exclusion of religion. I wonder if the press grasps the flip side of this notion. By overlooking or underplaying religion, reporters fail to illuminate politics sufficiently.
This is a strange moment for Black America. A major black celebrity frets about its values, while black Christian ministers worry about structural problems. Bill Cosby scolds black men for not being responsible fathers, while civil-rights era preachers encourage their flock to attend job training classes.
On the night before he was assassinated, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the now famous “Mountaintop” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn.
Jacqueline L. Salmon of The Washington Post wrote what I consider a very regrettable story about Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl. Salmon’s mini-profile of Wuerl, written in preparation for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit, was shallow and unfair, the sort of story that the Archbishop detests and rightly so.
Here we go again. I do not want to revisit this topic so soon, but I have no other choice. Reporters this year are still missing a big story: the marginal status of pro-lifers in the Democratic Party.
How can journalists reveal the interior life of their characters or interview subjects? Tom Wolfe has long advocated using three techniques — in-depth interviewing, diaries, and letters.
Kimberly Hefling and Eric Gorski of the Associated Press wrote a story about the Catholic vote in the upcoming Democratic primary in Pennsylvania that might be described as schizophrenic.
Neela Banerjee of The New York Times wrote about pro-choice couples who, with the help of perinatal hospital programs, decide not to abort an unborn child with a likely fatal condition. Her story was like few others that I have read. (Hat tip to GR reader Jerry.)
