The frame game continues, with a coalition of conservative religious groups — the traditionalist wings of most major religious groups — insisting that their battle with the Obama White House is not essentially about birth control, but about religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of course, says the battle is about birth control and quality health care.
Pod people: Media campaigns and civility
Ben Smith reports that Democratic Senators were furious at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” over how it covered the Obama Administration’s mandate affecting religious people and their organizations:
Frame game: the importance and composition of polling
Tmatt did a rather comprehensive look at how framing will play a big part in media coverage of the Obama Administration’s mandating of what religious institutions should and should not offer in their employee benefits.
Americans really are ignorant boobs
Rick Santorum is not a Protestant. He has not called for public schools to teach creationism. Notwithstanding claims made by the Telegraph that the former Senator from Pennsylvania is an evangelical and a creationist — Mr. Santorum remains not guilty of these charges.
Frame game: Birth control vs. religious liberty, again
At this point, the media storm about Health and Human Services story is growing and becoming more complex.
Blind spots breaking out all over
Last night, I pointed out the Washington Post media writer Erik Wemple’s rather odd attempt to defend mainstream coverage of the Planned Parenthood PR and fundraising campaign of the Komen foundation. One of the things he’d said was that Ross Douthat’s New York Times column critiquing bad media coverage was “bunk” because you could find good coverage, too. Specifically, he pointed out, this Dallas Morning News story (“which carefully laid out both sides of the dispute”). How carefully, you ask? This carefully. Here’s the lede:
The narrow Prop 8 decision
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” â Mark Twain
Kurtz: Of course Komen stories were biased
As you poor GetReligion readers know, I’ve been pounding the beat on media coverage of Planned Parenthood’s campaign against Komen. You can read my earlier posts: “Media discover Planned Parenthood is controversial” (which took issue with how media reports told only half the story about how people feel about Planned Parenthood), “Media genuflect before Church of Planned Parenthood” (which critiqued how they were engaged in advocacy on behalf of Planned Parenthood), and “Planned Parenthood and media thank each other” (which cataloged how they thought they’d done good work in advocating for Planned Parenthood). I also wrote a piece for CNN collecting some of these thoughts: “My Take: On Komen Controversy, Media Told Half The Story.”
JFK meets Wheaton College (no, not that one)
As you would imagine, the new memoir by former White House intern Mimi Alford about her affair with President John F. Kennedy is causing a lot of buzz, even though the scope of Kennedy’s philandering has long been rumored, documented and then dismissed in Beltway circles.
