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Let me jump in with a note about Mollie’s post about the White House and the raging armies of Christmas, since all of us here at GetReligion are getting boat loads of email about this topic. For me, there are two newsworthy topics linked to this (in addition to all of those that discussed by Mollie, such as the interesting Americans United angle).
Suffice it to say that, yes, your friends here at GetReligion have recived dozens of tips about Mel Gibson and his proposed television miniseries about the memoir of Flory A. Van Beek, a Dutch Jew whose Christian neighbors hid her from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Yes, this story may turn out to have some legs. Meanwhile, this was certainly a gracious quote in the New York Times piece that started the buzz:
A group best known for its defense of the free-speech rights of traditional religious believers has decided — acting in a totally consistent manner — to get involved in the defense of a protestor for a case that most would consider “on the left,” in terms of politics. The group to which I am referring is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Is there anyone out there in GetReligionLand who speaks the English dialect called “British” well enough to help me break the code in the following story by John Daniszewski (God bless you) of the Los Angeles Times? It concerns the rise of the ever-so-slightly modish David Cameron as the new leader of the Tory Party at the ripe old age of 39, which is even younger than a TV cyberanchor here in the USA.
The following sort of reminds me of the story about Georgetown University debating the wisdom of removing crucifixes from its classrooms as a sign of that very hip Catholic school’s commitment to diversity. In the midst of the mini-media storm, it was the Muslims on campus who said the whole idea was nuts. In fact, a Muslim chaplain threatened to resign if the school took this step.
This Associated Press report is one of those “believe it or not” stories that you just have to write straight and let the readers shake their head.
If you have picked up a newspaper in the past week or so, you have surely noticed that we are well into our culture’s annual Christmas Wars.
Our friends over in the Christianity Today kingdom often wait, for a few weeks, before some of the pieces in their publications make their way from dead tree pulp into cyberspace. Thus, I have held off a bit posting a note about the recent Books & Culture essay by historian Philip Jenkins of Pennsylvania State University entitled “Religion and the Media: Do they get it?”
Here’s a hopeful note, for those who care about high-quality religion coverage in the mainstream press.
