Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
GetReligion readers may have noticed that Nicholas D. Kristof experienced a fit of journalistic paranoia this week, one inspired, in large part, by a topic close to the concerns of this blog. Basically, he is scared stiff — with just cause, in my opinion — that the American public now views the MSM as a bunch of biased jerks, or worse. Thus the headline: “A Slap in the Face.”
I could have sworn, during the first few hours after the papal funeral, that I saw National Catholic Reporter superstar John L. Allen Jr. on at least three cable news shows at the same time.
Several years ago, as the clergy sexual abuse story kicked into high gear, papal biographer George Weigel made an interesting comment about a practical reason that many top officials inside the Vatican were failing to grasp the anger of many American Catholics — especially the anger of traditionalists who usually are Rome’s strongest defenders.
Is there anyone else out there who would like an update on the status of that CNN International report about the future location of the heart of Pope John Paul II? While everyone else talked about the hopes and dreams of Polish leaders, CNN posted this:
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it sort of amazing that The Daily Mail believes the following information is a hot news story. In fact, I would argue that it would have been a much more important story if the Prince and his Lady fair had elected not to recite a major-league prayer of repentance.
The anti-Borg here at GetReligion does not go out of its way to comment on op-ed page columns, unless they are directly related to how the press is covering a particular news story.
It has been very hard, the past few days, to decide what waves in the ocean of Vatican coverage are worth surfing. We will continue to try to note some of the better sites collecting valuable links.
I think it was during a seminar at the Poynter Institute that I first heard a line drawn between “balance” in a news story and the concept of “false balance.”
I have not been able to read everything, but, so far, it seems that The Sunday Times has the most developed, lovely version of the final moments of Pope John Paul II, complete with lots of clear attributions for sources. Here is a major piece of this triple-byline feature, starting with the pope struggling to dictate a mesage to his secretary:
