Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
So I finished the 5-part (plus epilogue!) New York Times series about the hostage-taking, captivity and escape of reporter David Rhode. I enjoyed the series, and it reminded me of the one about a similar situation involving the Christian Science Monitor‘s Jill Carroll.
We’ve looked a bit at some of the hyperbolic coverage of the major Vatican news this week. Previously, for instance, the Times (U.K.) ran headlines about Catholic tanks parked on Anglican lawns, then Vatican gambits and Papal poaching.
Slate has an awesome annual feature called 80 over 80. It ranks the country’s most powerful politicians, businessmen, and cultural leaders who are in their ninth decade. Ranked according to their power and importance, look who comes in at #1:
Coverage of the new arrangement being offered by Pope Benedict XVI to traditional Anglicans is making mention of the division within the Anglican Communion over ordination of women, ordination of openly gay clergy, the elevation of a noncelibate homosexual to the bishopric, and the blessing of same-sex unions. And when discussing those issues, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Episcopal Church has come close to schism over these issues.
A couple of weeks ago, I harshed on the Los Angeles Times for its flippant and even silly treatment of the problems that arise from having sex in campus dorms. The hook for the story was that Tufts University enacted a policy forbidding sexual activity if the student’s roommate is present. The Times story never dealt with the morality of extra-marital sex or even just the morality of having sex in someone else’s unwilling presence or in their shared room. Instead it had a brief discussion of legal implications.
There’s something curious about the way the media have been handling the difficult and complicated story of Rifqa Bary. She’s the Ohio teenager (pictured here) who fled to Florida after she converted to Christianity over concerns her Muslim father might kill her. We last looked at this story when CNN inexplicably referred to the girl as “Muslim” even though the whole point of this saga is that she’s not.
A couple of years ago, there was a flurry of stories about a study on abortion rates worldwide. Published in the Lancet based on research by the Guttmacher Institute, the stories said that abortion rates were the same throughout the world, regardless of legality.
You’ve heard of religion reporters becoming atheists. And you’ve heard of religion reporters becoming agnostic. But have you heard of religion reporters becoming pastors?
