Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
For weeks I have been meaning to take a look at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (“Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low“). It didn’t deal specifically with religion reporting — or any other particular beat — but it showed that only 29 percent of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight and only 26 percent felt that news organizations tried to avoid political bias.
I have heard from some readers who want to know what GetReligion thinks of the coverage — specifically the A1 news feature in the Washington Post — about the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union and a several other groups to take down a simple cross erected in honor of World War I veterans on an outcropping of rock on federal land in the Mojave National Preserve in California.
Jim Lindgren over at the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy has excerpted a fascinating George Orwell essay from 1944 about what a morally depraved yet talented artist Salvador Dali is. It discusses how the fans of his art claim “a kind of benefit of clergy” where they exempt him from the moral laws that constrain ordinary people. Here’s the line that got me:
It was a strange story from the start. The Washington Post dedicated a lot of newsprint the other day to a story about an ex-hoops star, an urban basketball legend who, strangely enough, lacked strong ties to the D.C. area.
Since the 1960s, Woody Allen has made dozens of movies that have mixed entertainment and exploration of metaphysical issues. Perhaps Allen was an inspiration for Oscar-winning movie makers Joel and Ethan Coen, whose latest film, “A Serious Man,” opens Friday.
Last week the man who would have been the 45th head of the continent-spanning Ottoman dynasty, founded by Osman I in 1299, died. Ertugrul Osman instead lived in a rent-controlled flat in New York City.
Hey reporters! You can run, but you cannot hide. Sooner or later, the tiny flock of activists known as the Westboro Baptist Church will show up in your zip code.
There’s something I just like about the Q&A format. It’s nice to just see the particular questions that reporters choose to ask their sources as well as how those sources respond. There are two that I would like to highlight. The first comes from the Washington Post‘s “Voices of Power” series. That’s where reporters sit down with inside-the-beltway power players for a videotaped chat.
Last month the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to roster partnered gay people as clergy. Not everyone in the denomination is happy about this doctrinal change in how the church now treats sex outside of the lifelong union of one man and one woman in matrimony. Among those is a group called Coalition for Reform. Terry noted some funny business in how the Associated Press handled the news of an upcoming meeting of this group and how the same news was handled better at the Washington Times.
