Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Perhaps this reveals too much about my sailor-like vocabulary, but you have to like a religion story that begins with the F-word. The Tennessean religion reporter Bob Smietana began his story on the National Religious Broadcasters Convention this week as follows:
The aim of this web site is to help media professionals “get religion.” Well, journalism professor Stephen Bates, writing in Slate, also thinks media professionals need to get religion. But he means something else entirely.
Norman Lear was the the writer and producer behind television hits All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude. He’s also a successful liberal activist behind People for the American Way, a group he founded in the early 1980s to fight the influence of the Christian Right.
After California voters passed Proposition 8 last fall, some opponents of the measure were quite angry. In addition to public protests, some people set up web sites singling out Mormon supporters of the measure, using public records to identify them. Other web sites listed all Prop. 8 supporters, regardless of their religious background.
Yesterday, I pointed out that journalists covering financial donations to California’s ballot initiative on marriage should attempt to put contributions in context. The latest filings covering donations show same-sex marriage supporters raised $43.3 million in 2008 while the measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million. This makes it the most expensive social issue race in the nation’s history. Lots of donors and lots of big donors weighed in on this contentious issue.
When the California Secretary of State released the latest report on donors to Proposition 8 related campaigns, I was a bit surprised at the lack of coverage. But then stories started rolling in. The latest filing shows that gay marriage supporters raised $43.3 million while Prop. 8 supporters raised $39.9 million. It was already known to be an expensive campaign, but those numbers are pretty impressive. People care about this issue, it seems.
Remember when President Bill Clinton said he wanted abortion to be safe, legal and rare? Remember how he was pro-lifers’ favorite president? Oh wait, that’s right, the “safe, legal and rare” formulation isn’t a pro-life mantra but a pro-choice mantra. And Bill Clinton fit perfectly in the pro-choice camp.
We frequently discuss the “ghosts” that are present in various stories. It pains me to use that term for this story about a child born at 23 weeks gestation who was allegedly killed by an abortion clinic owner outside Miami. This is another story that had been percolating around the internet before being picked up by mainstream media this week.
I am impressed with Laurie Goodstein’s story in the New York Times about reports that the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, an influential Catholic order, had an affair with a woman and fathered a daughter. The Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado was deeply revered by many, even after Pope Benedict XVI had forced him to leave public ministry over a completely different set of accusations dealing with sexual abuse of students. Many followers had felt that those accusations were unproved.
