Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Earlier in the week I lamented the poor coverage of that Florida college student’s Communion protest. In the comments, reader Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz noted that the story was continuing in Minnesota:
While the Los Angeles Times and other papers go for quantity over quality with their stories about the California Supreme Court ruling redefining marriage to include same-sex partnerships, there are a ton of interesting issues left barely touched about how same-sex marriage changes the lives of people who oppose it.
Sir John Templeton, the wildly-successful mutual-fund manager who pioneered international investing died Tuesday at the age of 95. He was also well-known for giving away much of his fortune to scientific and religious causes.
It seems that if reporters don’t know much else about Roman Catholics, they should know something of what they believe about the Eucharist. Catholic belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist has various supporting dogmas, including Transubstantiation and the Permanence of Presence and the Adorableness of the Eucharist.
Unless Mitt Romney gets picked to be John McCain’s VP nominee, the mainstream media may completely forget about that major news story from earlier in the primary season: Mormonism. Without that news hook, most reporters have moved on to different topics — debunking Christianity and shark attacks, or something.
There is nothing the media like more than to sensationalize undeserving stories. Usually this involves either the disappearance of young, attractive white women or alleged revelations about Jesus. in the latter category, we’ve read that Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water), that he wasn’t crucified in the manner in which people think, that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera, not Joseph, and that Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much as pass out after being doped up.
One of the reasons why I wish reporters would focus more on religion news that’s apolitical is because when they do, the stories turn out so much better. Take this great piece from Gabe Oppenheim of the Washington Post. The news angle for the story is that a local woman won the top documentary prize at the Student Academy Awards in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. But that’s about the least interesting aspect to the whole story.
Last week we had quite a few readers send us a story that ostensibly had nothing to do with religion. Here’s the Associated Press version:
Man, I missed Stephanie Simon. She’s the superhuman religion reporter who left the Los Angeles Times in April for the Wall Street Journal. These last few months of California-heavy coverage without her ace reporting have been difficult to endure. I missed her so much that I just randomly Googled her name . . . and found a fantastic story that ran last week in the Journal. I have no idea how I missed this huge Page One story with tons of graphics. (If that link does not work, try this reprint from the Denver Post.) It’s vintage Simon — she reports the heck out of her pieces, gives them a compelling angle, and writes beautifully.
