Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Every now and then, GetReligion runs a post that allows readers to comment about their personal beliefs while also addressing core journalism issues. That doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes you can do both.
Check out this lede from the Daily Texan story that ran under the headline, “Conservative Christians divorce more, study says.” It’s almost an exact replica of how the mainstream media covered a porn study a few years back. Here’s how this sad example of a divorce story gets started:
Since Mitchell Landsberg assumed religion reporting duties for the Los Angeles Times about a year ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist has written a lot of stories that have drawn heavy criticism here at GetReligion.
Time for a trip into the tmatt folder of guilt about a media-criticism issue that, let’s face it, could be reviewed year after year, world without end. Amen.
Before the 2008 election, there was a lot of ink spilled on the Democratic outreach to religious voters, but this time, the cycle seems more focused on the tea party. Part of the shift is probably due to the state of the economy and current horse race coverage on potential Republican candidates, but maybe the media cycle just needs to jump to the next exciting group to fuel election content.
Homeboy Industries is a pretty cool gang intervention organization here in Los Angeles. It’s sort of like a guns for jobs program, and it’s been an anti-gang leader in Southern California. The nonprofit’s founder and leader, Father Greg Boyle, is a Jesuit priest who started the Jobs For a Future program while still serving as the pastor of the Dolores Mission parish in Boyle Heights.
In a new video, a Planned Parenthood manager is seen assisting someone who claims he is a pimp involved with the sex trafficking of children as young as 14. She rather cheerfully and eagerly finds way to assist him with information about abortion and medical exams and contraception. When he asks about abortions for underage girls, she gives him the name of another clinic with lower protocols than hers. She warns him off of a nurse who cares more about the rules than she does (calling her an unprintable and horribly misogynistic name). You can watch the released excerpt or the full, unedited video here. It is absolutely horrifying — particularly about midway through — and includes crass language and distasteful subject matter.
A Tennessee pastor refused to baptize a couple’s baby in church unless they get married. WMC reports.
CNN’s Reliable Sources from Sunday details some of the general problems or opportunities with media coverage in Egypt. Host Howard Kurtz and his guests discuss everything from Al Jazeera being shut down in Egypt to how reporters are dodging bullets with protesters being felled all around. The closure of foreign bureaus means that those hungry for news have been tuning into Al Jazeera English, which focuses on Middle East coverage. Tmatt already looked at one ghost in the coverage — the fate of Egypt’s Christian community.
