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Back in the Stone Age, when student journalists still cut out headlines with X-Acto knives and pasted chemically drenched text to layout sheets with hot wax, I edited my campus newspaper.
It is with a certain sense of fear and trembling that I note that The New Yorker has published a long, detailed and emotionally devastating feature story on the Rutgers University case involving Dharun Ravi and the late Tyler Clementi. The double-deck headline on this “Reporter At Large” feature by Ian Parker is simple and eloquent:
As faithful readers of this weblog will know, your GetReligionistas are convinced that it is stunningly simplistic for journalists to talk about the “Catholic vote,” as if there was one mass of Catholics who agree on how they should apply centuries of Catholic doctrine to their actions in voting booths.
It’s always interesting when two reporters cover the exact same event and come away with strikingly different perspectives.
I like to say I hate politics, but there was something exciting about Drudge’s report on internal squabbling at ABC News. He broke the news that they were debating when to air Marianne Gingrich’s latest interview on the implosion of her marriage to Newt Gingrich, now leading in South Carolina polls. I’m not proud of it, but I have always enjoyed Marianne’s eagerness in airing the dirty laundry there. She was wronged, and she wants you to know about it, you know? This Esquire interview, as much as any other, should prep you for what to expect in tonight’s broadcast.
Once again, let’s repeat together the following foundational truth of journalism — reporters are not responsible for the headlines that grace or disgrace their news stories.
I’d like to call your attention to some great religion reporting in the British press this week concerning Dr. Jeffrey John, the Dean of St. Albans Cathedral. Attention to detail and context, lightness of touch, lucid prose and a high degree of intellectual and moral sophistication mark these stories.
There is nothing like a good sex scandal to boost circulation. A quick glance at the covers of the magazines offered for sale at your grocery store will confirm the maxim that sex sells. The escapades of film stars, royalty, and sports heroes have long been a staple of this genre, (politicians too, but they do not generate the same intensity of interest).
When I read Bible Belt Bobby’s post about the journalistic virtue called “attribution” I was reminded of a controversial West Coast story that I have been trying to get around to for several days. I refer to the recent resignation of Bishop Gabino Zavala as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
