Mollie Hemingway

, , , , ,

To mention or not to mention?

, , , , ,

One of the biggest holes in religion news coverage is treatment of weekly worship. Regular worship is one of the most common expressions of religious activity. Much more important in the life of the church than, say, politics. But it doesn’t seem to interest reporters terribly much. So I was pleased to see the angle that Washington Post religion reporter William Wan took with his latest: “As Easter nears, priests struggle with how, whether to address church scandals.”


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Corrections & amplifications, Vatican edition (UPDATED)

, , , , , ,

Holy Week is the most sacred part of the liturgical calendar for Christians. This year, Holy Week has coincided with some tough coverage of the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse problems from decades ago.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Check, recheck and triple check (UPDATED)

, , , ,

It appears that ace Vatican reporter John Allen isn’t the only person who noted problems with the New York Times‘ recent attempt to link Pope Benedict XVI to a particularly sickening story of priest abuse.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

A moderate "sheikh of death"?

, , , , ,

We’ve written at length about our frustration with the overuse of political terminology to describe religious groups. The labels “conservative” and “progressive” might mean something in politics, but they have their limits when it comes to discussion of faith.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Differing papal perspectives

, , , ,

We’ve discussed a bit of the European media’s coverage of various Roman Catholic sex scandals. The German press has been working on stories dealing with Pope Benedict XVI’s time there as a diocesan bishop, during which one child-molesting priest was transferred. The news has been terribly sad to read. And the New York Times has also gotten into the fray with some hard-hitting coverage. Here’s Laurie Goodstein’s recent story questioning whether then-Cardinal Ratzinger failed to act with one troublesome case involving untold numbers of deaf children in the scandal-plagued Milwaukee diocese.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

We're 0.8% of the coverage!

, , , ,

There was some unsurprising but sobering news from the folks over at Pew this week. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life analyzed more than 68,700 stories from 2009 and determined that religion stories accounted for 0.8 percent of the total news coverage from last year. That’s down a smidge from 2008′s 1.0 percent. By comparison, news about health care comprised 11 percent. Education and immigration, on the other hand, are about where religion coverage is.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , ,

The sudden rise of violent rhetoric

, , ,

Last week our powerful and very effective Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, of the health care legislation the House was considering, that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Well, we’ve passed that bill and some of us wish the media would have concerned itself with what was in the bill a bit more before the vote, much less after. But even before the House voted in support of the bill, most stories dealt with politics. And now that has descended into some pretty partisan media coverage. The media obsession of the moment is that health care legislation’s opponents are a violent and uncontrolled mob, the likes of which we’ve never seen (or something).


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

Fewer foregone conclusions, please

, , , , ,

Growing up as a pastor’s kid, my aversion to congregational meetings was earned honestly. I don’t know what it is about people, but time somehow becomes no object when contending for how you want the bathrooms remodeled. And I’m glad that people care about how their congregation is operating, but sometimes that concern translates into some pretty tense moments. I was reminded of my feelings about voters assemblies when reading this horribly imbalanced story about a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran congregation’s recent vote regarding a principal who had been accused of teaching contrary to the denomination’s position.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Quietly awaiting execution

, , , , , , ,

Saudi Arabia isn’t high on anybody’s list for a religious freedom award. But last year there were some hopeful signs for religious liberty advocates when the king dismissed the chief of the religious police and a cleric who had condoned killing owners of television networks that broadcast immoral content. He had also appointed a female deputy minister and changed the makeup of a body of religious scholars — who issue fatwas — to give more moderate Sunnis representation.


Please respect our Commenting Policy