Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Joel Osteen is “the new face of Christianity.” That breaking religion news out of Houston — published 4,845 miles away in London — arrives courtesy of a 3,800-word profile in The Observer, which boldly declares:
Glenn Beck’s comments about social justice last week made the blog rounds earlier this week, and the reaction has been somewhat predictable. Some ignore it; some eat it up; others are ready to condemn it. Here’s what started it all:
Your GetReligionistas have a long, long, long, oh so long history of struggling with the question of whether mainstream reporters should continue covering the staged-for-media hatefests that seem to be the only reason for the existence of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan.
This week we’ve seen two major stories on “gendercide.” That’s the phenomenon of some 100 million plus females having been aborted through sex selective abortion. One appears in the Christian Science Monitor and the other in The Economist.
I don’t mean to shock you, but I’m about to accuse the Los Angeles Times of giving some soft news coverage — almost cheerleading — to an evangelical anti-abortion activist.
Maybe you’ve had a bad week. You hate the melting snow, you’re recovering from a cold, maybe you hate your job. You’re ready to take it out on someone, but it would probably take more than a bad week for you to get the motivation to conspire to kill an artist in Sweden over a cartoon.
The Washington Post‘s coverage of the recent change in marriage law here has been, unsurprisingly, of the partisan cheerleading variety. I’ve read a few reports and pondered if they would have been written terribly differently if they’d been issued as press releases from the communications shops of organizations advocating for same-sex marriage. “Gay marriages to boost sagging economy!” “Mexico City shows that gay marriage is awesome!” You get the idea.
Back in my Denver days, I covered a remarkable meeting about intermarriage between Jews and Christians, in this case Catholics. In the summary remarks, one of the rabbis made a comment that has always stuck with me.
