Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
If you’re a baseball purist, imagine a metro daily publishing a full-length story about the designated-hitter rule and quoting only those who favor it. If you thought “American Idol” was better with Paula Abdul as a judge, imagine a major media report that interviews only fans who believe Ellen DeGeneres is God’s gift to reality TV. Would either piece impress you as quality journalism?
As is often the case, the mainstream press was handed a fascinating church-state separation case today and didn’t seem to realize it. Here’s the top of the A1 report in the Washington Post:
GetReligion doesn’t usually deal with columns, but sometimes a columnist will cover (or attempt to cover) something newsworthy.
If I never had to read another story about the Westboro Baptist Church and its “staged-for-media hatefests” — as Tmatt so aptly described the congregation’s protests last month — I just might make my own sign. “Thank God for small blessings,” it would read. Or something like that.
I was reading this CBS/Associated Press story about a missing 11-year-old girl from central Florida being found alive, four days after she disappeared in swamplands near her home. And there was religion all over the place. People were talking about miracles. The guy who found her went to the same church as her parents. But we never learn what church it is. It’s just weird.
As you would expect, the editors and reporters at the Los Angeles Times have been trying to do some heavy lifting following the announcement that Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio would soon be arriving in the City of Angels.
Were you thinking that the Vatican Media Frenzy had gotten a bit stale? Well, you’re in luck. Roughly eleventy billion media outlets are running a story about something Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said at a Chilean press conference yesterday:
So yet another story in the Vatican Media Frenzy 2010 came out on Friday. And the Associated Press did its best to make it seem like the story to end all stories:
Whenever I get on my high horse about the ways in which mainstream journalists abuse the term “fundamentalist,” I always urge journalists to simply allow religious believers to describe their beliefs. It is also fair game, of course, to describe the people’s actions in the public square, then ask them to explain how their beliefs shape those actions.
