Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
A pastor friend of mine passed along a truly horrible story by Reuters’ Andrea Hopkins. The premise is that “moderate” Christians are fighting “fundamentalist” Christians with regard to the rapture. The article is poorly written in a journalistic sense: it’s one-dimensional, doesn’t grasp scope of the issue and is layered with opinion.
Recently we’ve discussed the penchant of reporters to talk politics in religion stories. A good example of that reliance comes the New York Times‘ Linda “I am the Alpha and Omega of all things factual” Greenhouse. Published in Sunday’s paper, she anticipated Monday’s Supreme Court hearing on a free speech case.
Like many other apartment renters in the world, I spend a great deal of time coveting other people’s houses. Or homeownership in general. So this local religion story out of Detroit caught my eye. Reporter Doug Guthrie of The Detroit News wrote about a $3.65 million parsonage bought for a pastor, Ben Gibert, by his church.
An expose of a Kansas City megachurch ran on the front page of The Kansas City Star‘s Sunday edition and a few readers passed it along then. I apologize for the delay in posting about it, but it’s taken me days to get through the whole package.
Washington Post Foreign Service writer Kevin Sullivan had a lengthy piece on religion and the Internet today. The article is full of details about how Indian Hindus use the Internet in their religious devotion. Here was one of the early paragraphs:
So I was talking to my wonderful mom last night and she mentioned an article about the Episcopal Church she read in “the newspaper” that had a notable error. I asked her which paper (Denver has two papers and they also subscribe to or receive other local papers) and she didn’t remember. Neither did she remember what day it ran or who wrote it. I asked her if she remembered that I write about the problems mainstream media reporters have with writing about religion. She did and said she meant to mention it to me earlier. So this is just a reminder to my mom and all other readers that we love it when you point out good and bad articles you read or segments you watch or listen to. Within a few hours or days at most.
Harvard religion professor Diana Eck’s New Religious America: How A “Christian Country” Has Now Become The World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation looks at how changing immigration laws have shaped the country. She tells stories about Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.
If I were queen of the world, I’d forbid reporters from using any variation of the they’re just like you and me theme for stories. It’s bad enough when Us Weekly does it with a photo package of celebrities shopping and walking their dogs. But when mainstream reporters do it, it’s embarrassing.
One more than a few occasions we (I?) have highlighted the work of talented Denver Post religion reporter Eric Gorski.
