Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Reader’s Digest announced in November 2008 that it will work with evangelical pastor Rick Warren to produce a new magazine and a “Facebook for Christians” platform. In a report heavy with ideology, Stephanie Clifford of The New York Times treats the Warren deal, and a staff meeting at the corporate headquarters, as evidence that the company is turning more conservative:
Every now and then, editors really need to bite the bullet and tell their troops, “OK, this is just getting too complicated. We are going to have to make room for a sidebar that lets our readers know what in the heckfire we are talking about.”
The world-weary folks at the Washington Post Style section have made it official — the Sen. John Ensign affair is just no fun at all.
I don’t know about you, but I really miss reading a good, newsy, weekly magazine. Thus, while I was on the road (that long trek, literally, around the world last week to speak in Manila, Bangalore and New Delhi) I really enjoyed getting to dig into a small stack of international editions of Time.
The American Civil Liberties Union recently released a report arguing that the fight against terrorism has unduly interfered with Muslims’ religious freedom and hampered the work of Muslim charities. The report argues that U.S. statutes against funding of terrorist organizations are too broad and unfairly enforced. This has made it hard for Muslims to fulfill zakat, one of their religious obligations. Zakat is the giving of a small percentage of wealth (roughly 2.5%) as charity.
Talk about a byline and a dateline that raised some eyebrows! The online folks at New York Magazine asked the obvious question in this headline: “Why Is Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in Iran?”
Sometimes it’s surprising how little institutional memory the mainstream media has. Take this story from the New York Times, explaining a debate over a building plan by a Muslim school in Northern Virginia. Reporter Theo Emery explains that Islamic Saudi Academy officials in Fairfax, Virginia, are seeking permission to erect a new classroom building and move hundreds of students from another campus. But some neighbors are opposed because of congestion. Other neighbors have a different basis of opposition altogether:
Kim Janssen of the Chicago Tribune did a generally solid job with a delicate topic on Friday, telling the story of a woman who blogged about having a baby with Trisomy 13, then losing the baby to death soon afterward. This pregnancy, although fictional, drew on what blogger Beccah Beushausen said was her previous loss of a baby under similar circumstances.
A few months ago we looked at the lack of media coverage of an attempt by some Connecticut legislators to replace the Roman Catholic Church’s governing structure with a congregational system. Well, the media developed an interest in the story soon enough and the legislators were brushed back by a huge public uproar over the meddling.
