Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
As “old media” seek to reach new audiences through the use of online technologies, we’ve seen journalists, like the Boston Globe’s Michael Paulson develop blogs (his is “Articles of Faith”). Sometimes these are a way of posting less formal comments on a topic. Sometimes they offer another place to discuss issues that journalists can’t fit into the traditional news hole.
One of the more interesting stories regarding stem cell research is one that has been woefully under-reported. Even though scientists have been performing embryo-destructive stem cell research for a decade, there are no clinically available treatments that have resulted from the research. In the past two years, however, scientists have discovered ways of inducing pluripotent stem cells that many see as more promising.
So The New York Times covered Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s first Mass in New York. This is a good thing. Depending on when and how you accessed the article, its headline was either:
The National Institutes of Health posted their draft guidelines for the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research last Friday. When President Barack Obama announced his new embryonic stem cell funding policy in March, he said guidelines would be set by the NIH. The new draft guidelines can definitely be changed in response to responses received during the comment period or through promised legislative action, but here’s how they stand now:
Considering how common in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies are, isn’t it surprising how little the media discuss the attendant issues?
Every now and then, some other organization or person gets out a sharp knife and attempts to do unto some mainstream news source what GetReligion does unto others day after day.
I thought I had heard everything about the deep, deep roots of the sexual abuse scandals — plural — in the Roman Catholic Church. I say “plural” because they really go back to the early 1980s and the waves of acid have been rolling in ever since.
So the ever snarky team at the Washington Post Style section decides to do a feature story about male circumcision.
The Roman Catholic bishop of South Bend, Indiana will not be attending the graduation ceremonies at the University of Notre Dame because President Barack Obama will be honored at that time. Obama’s policies on embryonic stem-cell research and abortion conflict with Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life.
