Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Time magazine has a feature story on the death of Noor al-Maleki, a young Arizona woman who was killed by her own father. He was convicted this week of her so-called “honor killing,” and I write “so-called” because I have trouble putting the word “honor” next to any practice so barbaric as spilling your daughter’s blood in order to cleanse your family’s reputation.
Remember Chris Lee, the congressman who resigned after a woman he met on Craigslist sent a suggestive photo to Gawker that he had sent to her? The allegations and the resignation happened so quickly that it fell out of the news cycle fairly quickly.
Coming from a family of eight, my interest is often piqued when I come across stories about large families. If we had cable, we might be 19 Kids and Counting regulars. But 19 children seems small in comparison to this family in India. Get ready for this story from Reuters.
On this week’s Crossroads podcast, we talk about Newsweek‘s “What the Bible really says about sex” and some of the journalistic weaknesses it contained. We also discuss the shallowness of celebrity coverage when it comes to talking religion.
Publications often set up “experts” to write definitive pieces on certain subjects without asking them to follow some basic journalism standards, such as providing evidence for conclusions. We see this kind of piece from historian Jessica Warner the Globe & Mail on how evangelicals are getting quite sexy.
First things first. Let me confess two things before I dive into this Los Angeles Times story about an extremely predictable controversy at Westmont College about homosexuality.
For a religion reporter editor of a major magazine, Lisa Miller of Newsweek can be woefully undereducated about some religion basics. Such as the Old and New Testaments.
In a new video, a Planned Parenthood manager is seen assisting someone who claims he is a pimp involved with the sex trafficking of children as young as 14. She rather cheerfully and eagerly finds way to assist him with information about abortion and medical exams and contraception. When he asks about abortions for underage girls, she gives him the name of another clinic with lower protocols than hers. She warns him off of a nurse who cares more about the rules than she does (calling her an unprintable and horribly misogynistic name). You can watch the released excerpt or the full, unedited video here. It is absolutely horrifying — particularly about midway through — and includes crass language and distasteful subject matter.
On Sunday I complained about how all but the rarest coverage of XXXChurch — and there has been a lot of coverage of its National Porn Sunday, from NPR to TMZ — has failed to take Craig Gross’ anti-porn Christian organization as much more than a novelty.
