Politics

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Gays and Georgia: Mainstream media ignore the religious angle

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The gay rights/religious rights battle is back in Georgia, where a religious freedom bill died in the last legislative session. As the next session opens today, mainstream media -- some from far away -- are watching closely at this embryonic state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The battleground of religious rights versus gay rights is back in Georgia, where a religious freedom bill died in the last legislative session. As the next session opens today, mainstream media -- some from far away -- are watching closely at this embryonic state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Unfortunately, all of that close watching misses the usual religious ghosts, and other stuff.

How many people have Georgia on their minds? Apparently they do in Portland, Maine, where the Press Herald ran a Tribune News Service advance on the Georgia session. It says RFRA is actually one of three such bills coming up.

But for a news organization once known for its conservatism, the article starts out awfully skewed toward the opposition:

ATLANTA — A public campaign by some of the biggest companies in the world launched Wednesday in Georgia, aimed at assuring gay employees and customers ahead of one of the latest legislative battles over religious freedom and gay rights.
Google, banking giant SunTrust and AT&T joined stalwarts including Delta Air Lines, Home Depot and UPS among nearly 100 businesses and universities that have signed on to the effort so far, which they have jointly dubbed "Georgia Prospers."
It marks the first organized effort by business and education leaders against a "religious liberty" push at the state Capitol that many in the gay community fear could allow discrimination – and that the corporate world fears would make an economic pariah of the Peach State. Religious liberty supporters, however, cast it as a new line of defense to protect people of any religion from interference.

To TNS, then, the important part is not that the bill is back, threefold; it's that corporations say these issues of principle will hurt business. Note also that the article puts "religious liberty" in sarcasm quotes, but not gay rights.


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Seriously? New York Times story on GOP schism is silent on 'pew gap' issues (updated)

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As you would expect, the political experts at The New York Times have noticed that, once again, war has broken out between the populist and country-club wings of the Republican Party. Thus, they produced a very interesting piece that ran under the headline, "For Republicans, Mounting Fears of Lasting Split."

This story will be interesting, to GetReligion readers, just as much because of what the editors left out, as well as that they put in. They correctly stress that, this time around, the GOP leaders face fundamental differences on a host of crucial issues such as immigration, rising tides of refugees and how far to go in battles with radical forms of Islam.

It is also interesting that, over and over, the piece equates the candidacy of Sen. Ted Cruz with that of billionaire reality-TV star Donald Trump. The implication is that they are appealing to many of the same voters and that there isn't much difference between the two.

But what is missing? To be blunt: Religion.

So, do you remember the "pew gap"? Apparently, it is completely gone or is now irrelevant in GOP debates, as well as the nation has a whole. Is that really true in the GOP? It must be true, because the Times team -- in this crucial piece about the threat of a GOP split -- completely ignores religious and moral issues (even as the U.S. Supreme Court faces case after case linked to religious liberty issues).

So what is the "pew gap"? Many people used to incorrectly claim that religious people vote for Republicans and non-religious people vote for Democrats. While it is true that highly secular and religiously unaffiliated voters are crucial in the Democratic coalition, there are also religious believers active in doctrinally liberal flocks -- which makes them a perfect fit in the modern Democratic Party. However, a crucial "pew gap" fact is that liberal religious groups tend to be smaller in terms of numbers.

If you are looking for the roots of the "pew gap" -- the fact that people who frequent pews are more likely to vote Republican -- then it's hard to top the 2003 Atlantic Monthly essay called "Blue Movie," written by Thomas Byrne Edsall. This is a flashback, of course, to a campaign dominated by Bill Clinton, not Hillary Rodham Clinton.


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Some empathy, please, as New York Times Jerusalem chief bids adieu

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Some empathy, please, as New York Times Jerusalem chief bids adieu

About a month ago I wrote a post on the buzz developing around the changing of the guard at the Jerusalem bureau of The New York Times. I noted then that Times coverage of the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about as closely watched -- and unsparingly critiqued -- as is any  produced by American journalism.

For the bureau chief, the job is a near guaranteed ulcer-producer. Still, the position is coveted by the Times' most ambitious, most skilled and toughest reporters. In the context of that super-competitive newsroom, that's saying something.

My early December post was pegged to the departure of Jodi Rudoren, who is leaving Jerusalem after four years. No replacement has been officially named as of this writing, but check out my earlier post if you're interest in the scuttlebutt about who that may be.

My return to the subject is prompted by a exit interview Rudoren gave to The Jerusalem Post, Israel's leading right-of-center and oldest English-language newspaper. Click here to read the entire exit interview published in the newspaper's weekend magazine.

It's well-worth your time as a primer on what it takes to cover a highly complex, super-important international conflict while under a microscope.

How does one prepares for such an assignment? How do you deal, just about daily, with angry, highly partisan readers who feel their side has been wronged? How do time and space constraints work against properly contextualizing daily events when one has decades of bloody conflict from which to draw?


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Bacon at a mosque: media don't get to the meat of a Florida vandalism case

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Which is worse -- a machete or slabs of bacon? No, that's not one of those riddles you'd hear in, say, philosophy class or late at night in a bar. It's a question posed in stories about vandalism of a Florida mosque.

Someone took a machete to the Masjid al-Mumin building in Titusville, near the Kennedy Space Center. The vandal used the weapon to hack at lights, windows and security cameras, then scattered raw bacon around the front door. Some cameras still worked, though: Police arrested one Michael Wolfe from surveillance images.

It's just one of a rash of vandalism against mosques around the U.S. since recent jihadi attacks like the massacres in Paris and San Bernardino. The interesting thing about the Florida incident is what the stories chose to lead with -- and whether they grasped the effect of the crime.

Among the more sensationalistic was the Religion News Service, which ran a USA Today story and headlined it "Man accused of swinging machete through Florida mosque." The original headline was a milder "Man accused of vandalizing mosque, leaving bacon." But both versions don't neglect the blade, saying Wolfe "is accused of slashing his way through the mosque, shattering lights, windows and cameras with a machete."

An official from the Council on American-Islamic Relations ties the two offenses together:

"People are afraid to take their children back to the mosque ... a machete was used," said Rasha Mubarak, the advocacy group's Orlando regional coordinator.  "They know we don't consume pork. This is something that those who are Islamaphobic tend to bring up or use."

A gold star to the story for adding this background: "Eating pork — including bacon and ham — is prohibited in the Quran. The Bible's Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy also forbid it." Pretty impressive for a secular newspaper.

The article borrows heavily, of course, from coverage in Florida Today, its affiliate in east-Central Florida. That newspaper quotes Muhammad Musri, who oversees 10 mosques in the area and, it says, has often done interfaith work:


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'Captain Moroni' and company seize federal land: Some scribes spot the religion ghost

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So that armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon: Does the coverage this morning in your local paper include a rather obvious religion ghost?

Here's how to find out. Call up the story -- let's check the latest from the Associated Press -- and search for the word "Mormon." If you're into generic religion you can search for "God."

What did you find? For the AP, here is the summary of what's going on in this fight over massive chunks of public land out West:

The armed group said it wants an inquiry into whether the government is forcing ranchers off their land after Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, reported back to prison Monday.
The Hammonds were convicted of arson three years ago for fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006, one of which was set to cover up deer poaching, according to prosecutors. The men served no more than a year until an appeals court judge ruled the terms fell short of minimum sentences that require them to serve about four more years.
Their sentences were a rallying cry for the group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, whose mostly male members said they want federal lands turned over to local authorities so people can use them free of U.S. oversight.

The group, AP stresses, is led by two of the sons of rancher Cliven Bundy -- a name that should ring bells in newsrooms, since he was involved in a 2014 Nevada showdown over grazing rights on public land. And does the "Bundy" name have a religion hook?

Contrast that summary AP material with the top of this story from The Oregonian. Spot any major differences?

As roughly 20 militants continue to occupy a federal wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon, observers are left scratching their heads. Why would an out-of-state rancher lead a self-styled militia in defending federal land far from home?
Because God told him to, Ammon Bundy said in a YouTube video posted Friday. Bundy is a son of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher known for his stand-off with the federal government over cattle grazing.


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Flashback 2015: Jewish news, an all-pope Top 10 list and trends on evangelical left

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OK, here is one final set of some Top 10 religion stories lists for the now distant 2015. If you have missed the previous installments, click here and then here to back up a post or two and catch up. There was also an end of the year "Crossroads" podcast.

One of the reasons that journalists dig into these kinds of lists, especially those prepared by leaders in specific religious flocks, is to learn about stories that may not have made headlines at mainstream news sites -- yet.

So here are three lists of this kind. Once again, please put any 2015 Top 10 lists that I missed in our comments pages.

We will start with A. James Rudin, a name familiar to all journalists who cover events and trends among Jews in North America and elsewhere. This Top 10 Jewish news events list was prepared for Religion News Service, but the link is to The Washington Post. You have Bernie Sanders, Nostra Aetate and a rabbi scandal or two. However, his top story is one that has been growing in importance for more than a decade, one sure to grow in importance with the rise of the Islamic State.

1. Anti-Semitic attacks escalate across Europe.
In January an Islamic terrorist killed four Jews inside a Paris kosher market, and in February a terrorist killed a synagogue guard in Copenhagen. The number of French Jews moving to Israel grew during the year.

Then there was this story, which our own Ira Rifkin flagged early on:

3. The BDS campaign gathers force.

In June, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ approved a resolution calling for the denomination to divest and boycott certain companies doing business with Israel.


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'Nasty' Ted Cruz dares to quote the Bible! Washington Post is stunned and strikes back

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So let's say that you are a political reporter from The Washington Post and you are covering a rally by Sen. Marco Rubio and, in the middle of remarks to his inner-ring of supporters, he says something in Spanish. The crowd responds with warm applause and cheers.

As a responsible reporter, would you (a) do an online search and find out what this phrase actually meant, (b) talk to someone from the Latino community to learn what the phrase meant, in context, and why it drew cheers or (c) both of the above? It is also possible that a major newsroom like the Post would have assigned someone to cover the Rubio campaign who speaks Spanish, but that is another issue.

Oh wait, there is another option. You could also pull the phrase out of context, assume that you knew what it meant and then, online, make a snarky remark about it. That will show 'em.

This is kind of what happened the other day with some behind-the-scenes remarks by Sen. Ted Cruz. The problem was that this event was covered by someone who appeared not to know anything about language drawn from that obscure book called The Bible. Here's the top of the story:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) told volunteers ... he believes the Republican presidential contest will be decided in the next 90 days, but warned them to get ready for a nasty ride.
"I want to tell everyone to get ready, strap on the full armor of God, get ready for the attacks that are coming," a hoarse-sounding Cruz told volunteers on a conference call. "Come the month of January we ain’t seen nothing yet."
The call, part thank you and update to volunteers and part fundraising pitch where listeners could press a button to give a donation, comes after Cruz's campaign announced it raised nearly $20 million last quarter as the Texas Republican ascended in the polls in both Iowa, the nation's first voting state, and nationally.

Then there was this official Post remark on Twitter, promoting this news report:


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Flashback 2015: New Religion News Service editor goes global (PBS looks to 2016)

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So we know how the Religion Newswriters Association poll viewed the Top 10 news stories of the year (commentary here and "Crossroads" podcast here). The original RNA press release is right here. So what did other mainstream religion-news outlets have to say?

I will let veteran reporter Kim Lawton and a panel of experts at the PBS Religion & Ethics Newsweekly broadcast speak for themselves. The video is up top and the transcript is here.

So how does the broadcast open? Well, it's about 2015, so I'm afraid that we are talking ISIS, terrorism, refugees and Donald Trump. And then Pope Francis.

Over at Religion News Service, Jerome Socolovsky -- the wire service's the new editor -- offered a list of what he billed as the "most consequential religion stories of the past year."

I think that is "consequential" in the sense of "important or significant," as opposed to "self-important; conceited." All I know is that this is a very thoughtful and well-developed list and I recommend it highly, especially if you are interested in the global angle on religion news over the past year. In particular, I thought the wording on the No. 1 item is especially strong:

ISIS and the lure of the apocalypse

We had already been introduced to the unspeakable cruelty of this group called the Islamic State, or Daesh in Arabic. And it continued this year: Coptic Christians were slaughtered on a Libyan beach in an act shown to the world in high-definition video.


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Flashback 2015: Revealing Top 10 lists from Religion Dispatches and Patheos Evangelical

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So far, your GetReligionistas have shared quite a few Top 10 story lists marking the end of the year -- like here, here, here and here, with an attached podcast here. These have ranged from the Religion Newswriters Association list to that of the Associated Press. I found it interesting (commentary here) that the top AP story -- period, as in the top story in the whole world -- was a religion news story, but that wasn't the top story in the RNA poll. Go figure.

Obviously, I find these lists fascinating, in part because they show us (a) just how complex the world of religion news really is and (b) the unique points of view (which can, in some cases become biases) that affect how scribes and editors see the world of religion news. There is much to learn in these lists, both for news professionals and news consumers.

In the next couple of days I will be posting a number of additional lists covering religion news in 2015, from a variety of different points of view.

Please let me know if I missed one or two that you would like to see posted.

Let's start with the Religion Dispatches list of the "Ten Religion Stores That Went (Mostly) Missing in 2015." The whole idea here, of course, is that these are stories that, from the point of view of Peter Laarman, SHOULD have received more coverage in the past year.

Read them all. But here are a few that caught my eye:

2. The struggle of the Black Church to come to terms with #BlackLivesMatter.
In some cities there has been visible conflict between Old Guard pastors (many of whom still identify with the 20th century civil rights movement) and the New Guard of fearless youth, many of whom are not shy about showing contempt for the pastors.


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