Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
One thing everyone can agree on is that Glenn Beck–the conservative star of TV, radio publishing and occasional live events–is hot. He’s also controversial, as a Beck-friendly columnist recently acknowledged in USA Today:
It’s fair to say that nine-term Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak is not a poster boy for conservatives, even for conservative Democrats. An opponent of the Iraq war, active on environmental issues, watch him being skewered above by radio host Rush Limbaugh for his criticism of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry.
Let me own up to being on the losing side of the great American dialogue about guns. Linked to my pro-life beliefs is a deep skepticism that the answer to violence on American streets is owning guns to use in self-defense. Thus I find it unsettling when pollsters, as Pew did last spring, track a rise in anti-abortion sentiment — and a call for less regulation of guns. Is there a connection?
Is the U.S. public moving towards a more conservative, or perhaps a less generally permissive, attitude towards legalized abortion?
I’m fairly new to motherhood, with a 2-year-old and an infant. I recently wrote my take on the Mommy Wars — that term used to describe everything from whether women should work outside the home while raising young children to whether to use cloth or disposable diapers — over at Christianity Today. So I was intrigued by this front-page Washington Post story that looks at a new Census report dealing with stay-at-home moms.
I’ve been way too nice to the folks at the Los Angeles Times lately. I mean, I joined GetReligion with complaints about how these weren’t the days of Russ Chandler, or even Bill Lobdell, who was also great. But with the recent work of news columnist Steve Lopez and new blood Robert Faturechi, I’ve had nothing but nice things to say.
For weeks I have been meaning to take a look at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (“Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low“). It didn’t deal specifically with religion reporting — or any other particular beat — but it showed that only 29 percent of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight and only 26 percent felt that news organizations tried to avoid political bias.
I have heard from some readers who want to know what GetReligion thinks of the coverage — specifically the A1 news feature in the Washington Post — about the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union and a several other groups to take down a simple cross erected in honor of World War I veterans on an outcropping of rock on federal land in the Mojave National Preserve in California.
