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This pair of stories has been around for a long time, stashed away in my thick GetReligion guilt file (which needs its own logo or something). I haven’t written about these two stories because I have not been able to figure out what I want to say. Logical enough?
Before we dive into the actual 12 days of Christmas — don’t forget to send URLs of any mainstream coverage — let’s look at another really interesting story from a big week for religion news in the Washington Post. The headline was crisp and to the point, if somewhat dry for such an interesting piece:
The New York Times‘ marriage announcement page also has a feature called “Vows” where one of the lucky couples has their story told by a reporter. Weddings are rites of passage where ghosts abound. But usually these stories are sappy lovey-dovey accounts of how romance blossomed. Last week’s Vows section is no exception. And boy is it one for the ages. Now, I was absolutely horrified when I read it (linked on Twitter by John Podhoretz with the note “Boy is this going to be discussed at my kids’ Upper West Side School this week, and discussed, and discussed.”). He was right. The story lit up the twitterverse and blogosphere and made it into other media coverage, too.
It is very hard to write about the history of Catholicism in the United States without writing about the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland. Baltimore is, of course, the senior see in the United States and was established as a diocese on April 6, 1789.
Story selection is one of those media criticism topics I wish we could address more. So often we’re responding to what did get written rather than what didn’t. Arguably the decision about which stories to cover and which to ignore — or which to cover ’round the clock and which to cover once and move on — contributes more to our perception of the world than how those stories or written.
Between budget cuts, layoffs and diminishing page counts, it’s rare to see newspapers publish long-form stories of several thousand words or so. The Wichita Eagle puts its readers to the test by publishing a 3-part series of about 7,000 words. Its readers appeared to respond with hits, since the series “Promise Not to Tell” is the most-read story on the newspaper’s website this week.
This week the Colorado Springs Gazette had a report about a trio of churches that have left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over their departure from traditional Lutheran teaching. Here’s the lede:
Here’s the New York Times‘ latest piece about sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in Europe. It’s brief but unbelievably sad. Here’s the lede:
Many readers sent in Ross Douthat’s column in this past Sunday’s New York Times. It was a fascinating piece that centered around this news:
