Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University has set up an indispensable Internet tool for those tracking religion in the 2008 presidential election. Any reference to faith by a major presidential candidate is logged on the Web site and categorized by topic.
It is interesting to watch how journalists cover the ongoing legal saga of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church. The most recent news has a judge cutting in half the punitive damage award granted by a jury to the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder after the group protested at the Marine’s funeral.
The Washington Post has not, I am happy to report, been ignoring the role of religion in the Republican race for the White House. I mean — duh — the Monday edition contained two — count ‘em, two — different stories by reporter Perry Bacon Jr., about the current fortunes of Mike Huckabee and the role of religion in all of that.
There’s a controversy in Cincinnati about the “Bodies … The Exhibition.” However, it appears that there is no controversy at all about the same show in Baltimore.
Writing about church-state conflicts is not easy. What is the issue at hand? How does it affect ordinary people? Alas, two stories by the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post about a controversial legislative proposal failed to answer both questions adequately.
At its best, Get Religion is akin to what the Greenville Delta-Democrat Times was in the post-war white South: a rare publication that questions the establishment’s assumptions and reveals its sins of omission and commission.
I’m back in this forum, at the request of tmatt, just long enough to kick off a retrospective celebration of GetReligion’s fourth anniversary. Terry has asked us all to list the five favorite posts we’ve written in this site’s history, so cue John Coltrane.
It is not often that members of the clergy use their position to discuss journalistic ethics. Most of the complaints from clergy that I have witnessed firsthand deal with the way a particular story was handled or how their church or parish was portrayed in the local newspaper. Ministers and priests often reflect the theme we espouse here at GetReligion, that the media just does not get it when it comes to religion.
