Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The New York Times‘ outgoing public editor — Arthur S. Brisbane — wrote his final column this weekend. Most of it is outside the purview of this blog, which is discussion of media coverage of religion news. He talks a lot about how the Times has streamlined and responded to social media. But part of it was interesting enough to some readers to send it in for discussion. Here it is:
The most important story this week — do the math — has been the reaction to Rep. Todd Akin’s comments to an interviewer about what he called “legitimate rape.” While people have focused on Akin, it might be worth taking a closer look at the reporter who asked Akin the question about abortion and rape. It came during an appearance on The Jaco Report, hosted by veteran journalist Charles Jaco.
What we have here, in this short New York Times wedding announcement, is a dangerously vague and terribly loaded word — “assisting” — being used in a liturgical context of some kind. It’s crucial that the word “assisting” is being used in a way that directly connects it with another controversial word in this day and age — “married.”
Long ago, before the cooling of the earth’s crust, I took my first news copy-editing class as a young journalism student at Baylor University. Anyone who has worked as a copy editor know that one of the first things you learn is how to keep bad stuff out of print.
So, New York Times readers, it’s time to click your heels together and repeat the mantra, “There’s no place like Kansas,” “There’s no place like Kansas,” “There’s no place like Kansas,” over and over again.
You may have heard, already, that the Rev. Billy Graham joined millions of other Americans by eating a symbolic Chick-fil-A sandwich on Wednesday.
Let’s do another quick recap on media coverage of the Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. Yesterday we discussed the decision of Mark Krzos, a Fort Myers News-Press reporter, to publicly disparage the people he was covering for his local paper. We already updated the post to show that his editor responded to the controversy but you can also see his public statement denouncing the reporter’s comments at Romenesko.
At the moment, I am up in the mountains of North Carolina, which is one of those places where the occasional Democrat running for higher office will go out of his or her way to put the word “conservative” on the campaign yard signs so that they can try to hang on to the remnant of the good old days down here in the Bible Belt.
On Friday, the Vatican announced that Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone would become the archbishop of San Francisco, succeeding Archbishop George Niederauer who hit retirement age last year.
