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 of my favorite religion stories this week was this New York Times tale of intrigue and computer coding. I know I’m always calling for more and/or better coverage of the role religion plays in everyday life. But this was just too exciting:
Everyone claims that they don’t like negative ads but the truth is that they’re an effective way for someone to gain ground against a political opponent. So usually it’s the political challenger who goes negative against the incumbent. But this being the crazy year it is, more incumbents are vulnerable and going negative. One of those is Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla.
What we have here is a highly partisan op-ed page piece — it’s written by Jim Towey, a George W. Bush staffer — on an openly conservative editorial page that bluntly protests a situation in the mainstream press that certainly looks painfully partisan.
Here inside the only Beltway that matters, the insiders, experts and politicos are going through one of their favorite rituals — a season of fevered discussions about the latest Bob Woodward book offering inside gossip about all the president’s people. As always, these holy days begin with a series of A1 excerpts from said volume in the Washington Post.
I have read a lot of Michael Lewis over the years — at least five of his books that I can remember, not to mention countless articles. His real gift as journalist is a knack for pure, unadulterated readability. The fact he’s able to write about esoteric subjects such as baseball statistics and credit default swaps and make them both understandable and wildly popular is no mean feat. Believe me, I’m envious.
This week the U.S. Senate voted against taking up a major military bill that would have allowed the repeal of President Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. That’s the policy that keeps the military from doing anything to find out if members are homosexual while also keeping openly gay or lesbian people from serving in the military.
Surely it’s a comment on the state of things in Washington, D.C., that the mainstream press considered it a big story that President Barack Obama decided to go to church. I mean, he went to church out in public, as opposed to attending a private service at Camp David.
From my growing guilt file, one story keeps popping up. The Portland Press Herald in Maine ran a story on September 11 about a local observance of the end of Ramadan. The story ran on the top of the front page, I believe, and had a large photo with it.
Forsyth County, Georgia v. Nationalist Movement was a 1992 Supreme Court case dealing with freedom of speech. Forsyth County had this ordinance that mandated permits for private demonstrations. County administrators decided on the fee, which was only up to $1,000. When a group of white nationalists proposed a demonstration against the Martin Luther King, Jr., federal holiday, they were levied a fee of $100. They sued, claiming the ordinance violates their free speech guarantees. The Supreme Court agreed.
