Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Why did Lahore, Pakistan, think it was different? And different from what? Much has been made about how Lahore was perceived as different since the brutal, daylight attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.
Last weekend, I poked the Los Angeles Times because it’s lede on the Dr. James Dobson retirement story went a bit too far. You may recall that it said:
My husband and I went to see Milk, the film about the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, a few months ago. We enjoyed the movie, with some exceptions, and I predicted Sean Penn would win the Oscar for best actor — he was just that transcendentally good. And the supporting cast was also amazing.
I love stories, like the one about giving up Facebook for Lent from a few weeks ago, in which ancient faith traditions struggle with the advent of modern technologies. How did the 15th-century church view the advent of the printing press, for example? Well, we have another example of the genre–a story in the Times Online (London) by Rome-based correspondent, Richard Owen that describes an effort by some Roman Catholic leaders to get laypeople to give up texting and other virtual communication for Lent.
One would think it might be a challenge to write about the subject of death and dying without discussing religion and faith. Of course, the absence of religion or faith in the subjects’ lives could limit the range or scope of the discussion. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t part of the story.
The Divine MZ and I have decided to go shallow, for a day, in a blatant attempt to appeal to search engines.
We’ve been covering such fluff this week — abortion, environmentalism, statistical analysis — that it’s time we get to something really serious. I write, of course, about screen legend Lindsay Lohan (star of the Oscar-worthy I Know Who Killed Me).
As you would imagine, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Rocky Mountain News the past week, especially once the final word came down on the shutdown of the newspaper where I worked during most of the 1980s. I still have lots of friends out there and, of course, that is also the paper that the Divine Ms. MZ Hemingway grew up reading, as well. Lots of memories.
Because my background is in economics and not religion or media, the media malpractice that gets me worked up the most usually involves numbers. No matter which newsroom I’ve worked in, the presence of numbers or numerical analysis seems to make journalists lose any brainpower. You should see what it’s like when reporters try to analyze polling data or governmental budgets. It’s just not pretty.
