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Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church 30 years ago and they are still occasionally contacted by members who encourage them to be careful with what they say. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have many positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.
Back in December, I had some passing words of praise for Matt Labash. I will make the obligatory disclosure that I’m friendly with him, but I don’t think that in any biases me when I say he’s easily one of the best magazine writers in the country. Just go ahead buy the recently released collection of his work and thank me later.
Okay, so we’ve already looked at some other coverage of DC’s new law permitting same-sex marriage. A few readers sent an early version of the following story, which has been improved with an update later in the day. It’s about how the former chief operating officer of DC Catholic Charities vehemently disagrees with Archbishop Donald Wuerl’s decision to cancel new spousal benefits for employees of Catholic Charities. The move was made so that the church could comply with both DC law and church doctrine. We discussed previous coverage here and here.
Regular GetReligion readers will know that, in the past few months we have been tempted to fly a white flag of surrender as a tragic number of talented religion-beat reporters and columnists have either moved on to other subjects or hit the exit doors of their newsrooms. It’s almost enough to make you click here.
I’ve found it more and more difficult to praise religion reporting found in the Los Angeles Times — more on that soon — but Kevin Baxter gave me great occasion to lay down my arms with his profile of Yuri Foreman. At least, I thought he would.
If you’re part of an organization trying to get your message out, you usually have to spend money to place ads where people can see them. Communications shops usually prefer getting stories written about them. Not only is it free but you can communicate more thoroughly with your audience. So while Focus on the Family seems to have been running more advertisements as of late, they have to be taking note of all the earned media they’re getting.
Earlier in the week I linked to the Washington Post story headlined “‘God gap’ impedes U.S. foreign policy, task force says.” Some readers will be delighted to see that it’s bylined by Godbeat fave David Waters. Here’s the lede:
As controversies about the d-word go, this one is actually pretty mild. In this case, the “devout Christian” is not a mother who stood by while the queen of her alternative religious groups allegedly starved her young son to death (or worse) and then watched his tiny body stuffed into a suitcase with mothballs and fabric softener.
Semester after semester, I tell my students at the Washington Journalism Center that some of the hardest news stories to cover — period — are personnel disputes inside private colleges and universities. The simple fact of the matter is that the administrations on these campuses do not have to talk about the proceedings in these cases and, often, they cannot talk about the facts of these cases because of valid legal concerns about privacy.
