Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
I don’t know what the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals does other than create salacious advertising campaigns but the group’s latest combines their trademark nudity with puppies and religion! It features the incredibly good looking Polish model Joanna Krupa, who was recently featured on a show my mom and half of America likes to watch called Dancing With the Stars.
The religion reporters at the Washington Post used to run a great blog called God in Government. A few weeks ago they merged that blog with Under God, the fantastic news blog written by On Faith editor David Waters. We’ve been somewhat less than enamored with the Newsweek/Washington Post On Faith section in general but Waters represents what is best about that site — provocative questions with balanced coverage. The new blog is called Under God: Religion, government and politics in the news.
Yesterday, the National Institutes of Health announced 13 new embryonic stem cell lines would be added to the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry. President Barack Obama received a lot of coverage for his decision to change President George W. Bush’s policy limiting federal funding for embryonic-destroying stem cell research. The media coverage earlier this year was pretty bad on that point. To review, prior to President Bush there were no federally funded lines. Bush began federal funding of the research — controversial because it destroys human embryos — but ordered that only those lines already in existence prior to August 2001 were eligible for said funding.
Steve already looked at some of the media coverage of the story about Switzerland banning the construction of minarets on mosques. For those of us accustomed to First Amendment-protected religious freedom, the vote probably comes as a shock and disappointment. Nairobi reader William Black wrote about a couple of the problems he saw in the coverage. He was disappointed with the vote saying that, as a Christian, he sees no reason to fear Muslim voices in the marketplace of ideas or Muslim presence in his neighborhood. And he worried that this vote would set a dangerous precedent for limiting the freedom of other religious groups in Europe.
Gaurdian reporter Chris McGreal has written a subtle and finely nuanced piece headlined “Religious right launches fresh assault on US abortion rights.”
Every year we read about the War on Christmas. The mainstream media love to cover stories about those Scrooges who ban the use of any specific greetings related to Christmas and the old curmudgeons who complain about the same.
The Washington Post has a feature headlined “A muscular, die-hard spirituality: Self-sufficient Christians prepare for Second Coming or for life after global disaster.” So you can imagine that I expected the story to be about that.
Those of you who have missed the posts of our Elizabeth Evans should head on over to Reuters FaithWorld where she has written about clergy sexual misconduct. She digs a bit deeper and wider on the topic than most treatments of the issue.
We’ve previously looked at media coverage of the rather public dispute between Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and Bishop Thomas Tobin. Last week I suggested that reporters at least explain the Catholic understanding of scandal as it relates to the case. And this week, I noted the confusion many reporters have between banning a communicant and suggesting he refrain from taking communion.
