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The Secular Coalition for America generated a bit of news on the left West Coast by announcing that Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif. , does not believe in God. The Los Angeles Times picked up the story and played it in a way that confirms for conservatives everything they thought about liberals. Take, for instance the headline, the subhead and the lede:
Evangelicals are going at it again over the environment, and the media have hardly sparred us a detail in covering the blow-by-blow in this round. For starters, Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times laid out the fight Saturday as an attack by “leaders” such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family on those who have “strayed too far from their signature battles against abortion and gay rights.”
The Style section of The Washington Post is known for blurring the lines, from time to time, between traditional news features and the first-person, magazine-style writing that once was labeled “new journalism.” The emotional, first-person piece by Anthony Shadid titled “The Bookseller’s Story, Ending Much Too Soon” is labeled an “appreciation” and that is what it feels like.
We’ve ranted and raved about the lack of knowledge important Americans like senators and Congressmen have about Islam, but now it’s time to have a fit about how little most Americans know about the religion that is all around them.
I realize that I have been rather hard on the folks at the Baltimore Sun lately, but, you know, it’s the local newspaper that’s in my front yard every morning. It comes with the territory and I really think that this major daily needs a more systematic approach to covering religion news.
The Washington Post had a fascinating piece in Sunday’s paper about how the number of couples with children in America is dropping. Giving himself plenty of room for analysis from the smart people at the Brookings Institution and other places, reporter Blaine Harden tracks an under-reported story that is changing the face of America.
In the aftermath of the Jesus tomb story, it looks like most Christians still believe in what the Bible says about Jesus Christ and few are the worse for the controversy. GetReligion reader Stephen A. urged us yesterday to comment on the actual showing of The Lost Tomb of Jesus Saturday night, and I regret to say that I missed the show. Fortunately, others did see it, but overall I was generally disappointed in the lack of media attention to the film’s premiere.
I woke up the other morning and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani was the Republican front-runner for the 2008 presidential race. How in the world did that happen? Heavy media coverage of “Rudy’s rise” came in over the weekend — first in a Washington Post A1 piece by Dan Balz and second in a Newsweek cover article by Jonathan Darman.
It seems like it’s “Let’s try our hand at GetReligion work” week at the Chuck Colson research staff office.
