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Stories about religous and moral controversies are about polity and denominations, protests and politics — but they are also, and mostly, about people. When a writer cares enough to spend time getting to know the people behind the positions, then it is possible (or more possible) for the journalist to let the story unspool invitingly without jumping in there with the exclamation points and scare quotes.
Kim Janssen of the Chicago Tribune did a generally solid job with a delicate topic on Friday, telling the story of a woman who blogged about having a baby with Trisomy 13, then losing the baby to death soon afterward. This pregnancy, although fictional, drew on what blogger Beccah Beushausen said was her previous loss of a baby under similar circumstances.
Why right now? Why are these isolated extremists pulling their triggers? What are the factors that are pushing the “kill” button at this moment in time?
As the mainstream media devote significant coverage to the shooting of a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum by an 88-year-old white supremacist, we’re seeing attempts to define his motivation and categorize his thinking. He is a white supremacist mostly known for his hatred toward Jews and blacks. He is in the sector of white supremacists who are anti-Christian. He’s a “birther” — one of those people who believe that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. But he’s also a “truther” — one of those people who believe that former President George W. Bush planned the September 11 terrorist attacks. He was imprisoned for trying to kidnap board members of the Federal Reserve. There are many other interesting tidbits — he had allegedly targeted the conservative Weekly Standard offices, is a socialist, a eugenicist, etc.
Robin Abcarian has a story in the Los Angeles Times explaining that late-term abortion doctor George Tiller’s clinic will be closing following his murder at his church. Here’s the subhed:
Last month I attended a meeting of Episcopal clergy. Most of us were middle-aged and elderly, longtime denizens of parish ministry. We spent some time talking about the Scriptures for that Sunday. Then I asked them what they thought of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester (got to be Episcopalian, with that name), a controversial bishop candidate in the Diocese of Northern Michigan.
A few years ago, Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll sent a memo to all section editors expressing his concern that the paper had covered a story about abortion in a remarkably one-sided manner:
Last Sunday, late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down in the foyer of his Lutheran church, where he served as an usher. As anyone with even a cursory understanding of Lutheranism in America could surmise, that church was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Of the various Lutheran church bodies in America, the ELCA is the most mainline and has the most supportive position on legalized abortion.
