Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Well, NPR’s decision to fire Juan Williams is going over like a lead balloon. NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepherd calls it a “public relations nightmare.” Before we get into some of the news coverage of the firing, one huge thing needs clarification.
Late last night, NPR fired senior news analyst Juan Williams. On Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” where he also contributes, there was a discussion about something that had happened on “The View” the previous week. Apparently Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar flipped out when guest O’Reilly said that “Muslims” had perpetrated the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They walked off the set in disgust.
So this past weekend former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was giving a speech at a Tea Party event and told the crowd that they couldn’t “party like it’s 1773″ until enough conservatives were elected to Congress to make a difference. The reference to the Boston Tea Party was obvious enough to the Los Angeles Times that they didn’t bother explaining its significance to readers.
When news broke on Monday about the death of a prominent pro-life activist, I expected to read about it in the conservative and pro-life press. But I wasn’t so sure what to expect in terms of the mainstream media.
A columnist at the Wall Street Journal used to regularly feature snippets from sports columnists who fancied themselves political pundits. You’d be expecting a nice piece on the last golf tournament but you’d instead get some tirade about the Iraq War or how awful President Bush is.
There was a massive “game-changing” development in stem cell research last month, but you probably didn’t hear about it.
Before we discuss a new story about problems at President Obama’s faith-based office, a bit of context.
We’ve written before about cartoon controversies at the Washington Post. There was this anti-Pentecostal cartoon from 2008. And then there was his anti-Israeli cartoon depicting a fanged Star of David being pushed by a headless, goosestepping soldier. Subtle.
I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know the relationship of yoga to Hinduism. The Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” had a piece on the topic a few months ago. In “The Theft of Yoga,” Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery at the University of Minnesota medical school and co-founder and board member of Hindu American Foundation, wrote:
