Mollie Hemingway

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Unnecessary advocacy on the front page

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With wonderful medical advances, humans are able to survive cancer and diabetes diagnoses that would have meant certain death not that long ago. And while these same medical advances and general economic prosperity mean there’s never been a better time to grow older, it also means that humans now have prolonged periods of demise that burden surviving family members. The average American lifespan has increased some 30 years since a century ago.


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Improper use of "improperly"?

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I tend to agree with my fellow libertarian Penn Jillette about people of different religious backgrounds attempting to convert me: I’d be more offended if they didn’t. It shows they care about me temporally and eternally. So I don’t personally share the disdain so many people have for the Mormon practice of baptism of the dead.


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Seeing Thew Forrester for the trees

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Back in February, Terry noted the story of the election of Father Kevin Thew Forrester as the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan. Thew Forrester’s views on Christianity are less than traditional. He wondered why the story — lighting up the blogosphere — didn’t attract more mainstream media attention. And a few weeks ago Terry noted an interview Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood secured with Thew Forrester.


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So how many bishops back Notre Dame now?

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With so many Roman Catholic bishops speaking out against Notre Dame University’s decision to honor President Barack Obama at this year’s commencement, we’ve seen quite a few stories in the mainstream press. When Mary Ann Glendon declined to receive the Laetare Medal in protest, we saw even more. But it’s been hard to put the story in perspective or context since there have been few stories looking at the overall scenario.


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We need a better torture discussion

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Yesterday we saw quite a bit of coverage of new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life analysis which had — to the many who read it splashed across the interweb, cable television, and newspapers — some shocking results. Here’s CNN, for instance:


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Aiming for accuracy

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Earlier this week, Elizabeth opened a discussion about what standards religion journalism blogs should be held to. Some mainstream reporters insert quite a bit of personal opinion while others retain their journalistic distance. Some use the blogs as a means of unloading information that couldn’t make it into brief stories. Many use a slightly more personal tone.


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Down and dirty with Peter Priesthood

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Religious persecution tends to make for sensational stories. There’s a lot of human drama, and for better or worse, it’s easy to confirm the worst fears of certain segment of the population that is skeptical of the “organized religion” behemoth. It’s no wonder that journalists pounce on them when they find them.


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How do you say "we're sorry"?

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Rather than update my previous Armenian genocide post with a link to Julia Duin’s article on its anniversary in the Washington Times, I wanted to highlight it separately. I noted that most stories about the events of 1915 were solely or almost exclusively political. Very few touched on religion in any meaningful way.


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Truth is mighty, and it shall prevail (updated)

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Though we’ve looked at a bit of the coverage related to Notre Dame University’s conferral of an honorary degree and speaking slot for President Barack Obama, there’s a lot that we haven’t highlighted. Mostly that’s because the stories are fairly straightforward or just local repetitions of previous stories. The Washington Times reported that, as of Friday, 46 bishops had publicly castigated Notre Dame:


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