Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
CNN.com features a story about popular phrases that are wrongly attributed to the Bible. At the time I’m writing this, it has 111 pages of comments. That’s like 6,200 comments. And to think that editors sometimes wonder if religion stories have enough appeal.
I love all most of our reader submissions, but the other day we received one that sounded pretty surprising. It comes from Hasan Hakeem, a member of the Ahmadiyya Community and the Chaplain of the Kenosha County Jail in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I’ll go head and just quote it:
So we’re at the confession stage of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s sex scandal. For those who haven’t been following along, I’ll try to give a quick recap.
So, uh, this happened. Newsweek has a story on Mormons headlined “Mormons Rock! They’ve conquered Broadway, talk radio, the U.S. Senate-and they may win the White House. Why Mitt Romney and 6 million Mormons have the secret to success.” And as the headline might indicate, it’s a favorable article about Mormonism. We may look at the article in the days to come. I do have to point out this second paragraph about former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s candidacy and announcement for the presidential nomination:
In the latest Crossroads, I discuss with host Todd Wilken the media coverage of hypocrisy, the murder of a Pakistani journalist and virginity checks in Egypt.
A Pakistani journalist was found murdered this week. I wanted to highlight that tragedy here because his beat involved a lot of religion coverage. Here’s how the San Francisco Chronicle explained it:
I don’t typically watch cable news, but too many people I follow on Twitter were insisting that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interview with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was must-see TV. I was able to watch a repeat of the interview, which was good TV, for what it’s worth. Afterwards, there was a segment on crisis communications and how poorly Rep. Weiner has handled the situation.
CNN is up with a horrifying story about what female protesters went through during the recent Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt. A senior Egyptian general has admitted that women were subjected to “virginity checks.” Amnesty International had alleged as such in a report following the protests. That group claimed that females “were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.” Those reports were denied. Things have changed:
I’m not much for displays of civil religion but there’s one recent governmental intervention that really chaps my hide. That’s where the government requires citizens to submit prayers for governmental approval before they’re uttered.
