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Judy Woodruff has us kids figured out. In her documentary Generation Next: Speak Up, Be Heard, the veteran broadcaster took a segment to explore the issue of religion with 16- to 25-year-olds. I can’t say I am a big fan of the documentary’s methodology, but it has its redeeming qualities.
A few days ago we looked at New York Times public editor Byron Calame’s expose of reporting and editing gone bad at the paper. He found problems in an April cover story from the Sunday magazine that claimed women were sentenced to 30 years in prison for nothing more than having abortions.
Let’s give a big round of applause to The Washington Post‘s gossip columnists, Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, for cornering an ironic bit of religion news Wednesday regarding the swearing in of the first Muslim in Congress. The irony of the story was not fully fleshed out, which is a pity because there is plenty of it.
Dear Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, please speak to the Rev. Pat Robertson tonight. Please tell him to shut up, sooner rather than later. Urge him to retire to his prayer closet and close the door for a few years. Maybe he can bench press some massive leather-bound copies of ancient Bible commentaries, or something like that.
The passing of Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States, brings us the usual slate of obituaries about the man who led the country after the scandalized President Richard Nixon resigned. Some of the articles break new ground and are affecting current debates — think The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward — while others are there just as historical reminders and are great for those of us too young (or still unborn during the 1970s) to remember Ford’s presidency or public life.
New York Times public editor Byron Calame has quite the challenging job. The Times is one of the most scrutinized papers in the world and Calame has to separate legitimate and illegitimate gripes over its reportage, story selection and headlines.
The Religion Newswriters Association has released its annual poll to determine the top 10 religion-news events and trends of the year. It is, in my opinion, a very ordinary year with an all-too-familiar blend of politics, Episcopal sex, Middle East warfare, one tragedy and one (or often two) events involving the pope.
Writing about atheism here at GetReligion would seem somewhat oxymoronic since we are well, a blog about the media’s coverage of religion. But even atheists have a degree of faith since it takes faith to believe that there is in fact no God out there.
