What is it about Christmas these days that brings the fightin’ out in journalists?
Oh, those Christmas cover stories
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Democrats praying? In public?
Here inside the cloistered alternative universe called Washington, D.C., many politicos are paying an unusual amount of attention to the health of Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota. The latest, as of 42 minutes ago as I begin typing, is that he has been conscious at several times since last week’s emergency brain surgery.
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You take the good, you take the bad
Sometimes I think the best thing a reporter can do to improve his craft is be interviewed by another reporter for publication.
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Scrutiny and opportunity
We cover Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney so much because so much of the mainstream coverage of him delves into religion. Many stories about Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, mention his ties to his church. Other stories obsess over how voters of varying religions will react to a Romney candidacy for president.
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We still don't know Obama
We’ve been snatching up the hints, eating up the intimations and listening to mesmerizing speeches, but we are all still waiting for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. — the latest Next Big Thing in the 2008 presidential race — to tell us what he believes. No, not his position on the issues, or that he thinks Democrats should court evangelicals, but what he believes.
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Carter's book meets the press
When a compelling book hits the stores, journalists covering the same subject can’t help but write about it. Rare and special are the books that break news with any real content, so in lieu of that, journalists seek external news angles in order to write about the book. It’s better than simply shilling for the publishing industry and writing a review, right?
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Mitt Romney's scarlet letter?
Do you hear what I hear? Conservative evangelicals are migrating their presidential hopes from Massachusetts to Kansas because of a letter Mitt Romney wrote in 1994. Or are they?
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So who nixed the Seattle menorah?
One of the most interesting stories in the 2006 Christmas Wars broke the other day in the Pacific Northwest, where the staff at the Port of Seattle hauled off all the Holiday Trees because of a conflict with a rabbi from the Chabad-Lubavitch organization about a long-delayed request to erect a giant Hanukkah menorah.
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Don't know your Islam?
Jeff Stein, the national security editor for Congressional Quarterly, has been doing some brilliant reporting lately. Yet it’s all so simple. Ask the leaders of our nation, particularly those in positions of power in intelligence, national security and international affairs, to explain the basic differences between Sunni and Shiite Arabs.
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