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Did it seem like there were no religion news stories last week? Maybe it was because all the religion reporters and writers were partying at the Alamo at the Religion Newswriters Association’s annual convention. Gary Stern blogged about it last week and even posted a video blog upon his return. Unfortunately the report included no funny stories or gossip about other religion beat professionals.
Normally we look at mainstream media, but I came across an essay in my church body’s monthly newspaper that is worth sharing. In The Reporter, veteran foreign correspondent and former religion editor at UPI (and my friend and fellow Lutheran) Uwe Siemon-Netto looks at how the mainstream media treat Christians and, conversely, atheists. He notes Christopher Hitchens’ fawning reception by CNN’s Lou Dobbs, among other examples.
In the discussion of a previous post about coverage of the Kathy Griffin brouhaha, Religion News Service reporter Kevin Eckstrom says the following about his piece:
What is it with my fellow GetReligionistas? It’s as if they’re completely disinterested in celebrity news. I just searched to see how we handled media coverage of the Kathy-Griffin-at-the-Emmys debacle (I was attending to other matters at the time) and see that we didn’t discuss it at all. For those who have more interesting lives, Griffin is a comedienne — and host of the 2007 gay porn awards! — who made scandalous remarks about Jesus when she accepted her Emmy for her Bravo reality series. There was so little substantive coverage of what she said that religion reporter Gary Stern hadn’t even heard about it last week:
I wasn’t keeping tally before last year, but it seems there has been a noticeable uptick in mainstream media coverage of confession in Christian churches. The New York Times‘ Neela Banerjee got the ball rolling a year ago with her coverage of evangelicals launching online confessional booths for virtual confessions. The Miami Herald‘s Jennifer Lebovich had a very interesting article on the same — taking a local angle on the Florida megachurches that run some of the sites.
Associated Press religion writer Eric Gorski had a terribly interesting story out of Colorado this week. He got his hands on a private e-mail written by James Dobson. In the missive, Dobson continues his anti-Fred Thompson campaign that he began a few months ago. Here’s a snippet of the e-mail:
Yesterday, tmatt pointed out that the media’s definition of evangelical has become so skewed that it now includes Eastern Rite Catholics. In the ensuing comments, reader Julia opined:
New York Times health and science reporter Benedict Carey has had more than a few interesting stories this summer. I particularly liked his write-up about how firstborn children have higher IQs. I’m a last born, for what it’s worth. For years he’s covered the case of one J. Michael Bailey, a pscyhologist at Northwestern University. Yesterday he wrote about the academic dispute involving Bailey, the former head of the psychology department:
An Episcopal priest in Louisiana sent along a story that ran on KSLA-TV in Shreveport. The provocative headline — “Homeland Security Enlists Clergy to Quell Public Unrest if Martial Law Ever Declared” — promises a juicy story. Particularly for civil libertarians like myself who fear just such hypotheticals. Here’s the lede:
