Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Like many GetReligion readers, I was somewhat rattled by that recent Washington Post story about the mainstream press and its love affair with what it thinks Pope Francis is saying about the doctrines of the Catholic church.
The Associated Press has decided, apparently, that stories need to include only side. Stories about same-sex marriage, that is.
“Is the pope Catholic?” is an old question, suggesting a rather obvious answer. Of course the pope is a Catholic, so the old saying flourished.
First things first: I have to admit that I almost choked on my diet cherry cola when I read the double-decker headline on this Los Angeles Times news feature about the next round of cultural warfare at the U.S. Supreme Court. Ready? You have been warned:
It was a story that received very little attention in the United States, other than in conservative publications and in the briefs that newsrooms devote to human-interest stories. But here is the top of a longer report in The Daily Mail (with characteristics of British news style intact):
It’s time for a quick dip into my unusually thick GetReligion folder of guilt, that place where I stash stories that I know deserve a bite of criticism, but more pressing matters (think Syria) keep pushing them back in the cyber-queue.
So, unless you have spent quite a bit of time on another planet in recent months, you probably know that Pope Francis is a rock star in global mass media and that condition will probably continue until he stands up in some crucial public-square location — Comedy Central perhaps — and makes a bunch of statements defending Catholic moral teachings.
