Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The news in the Newsweek cover story about the chaos that is Pakistan is that it does not add more confusion (or much more) about the whole “moderate” Muslim mystery. In fact, there isn’t much content on the progressive side of Islam at all — which I guess tells us quite a bit about the state of things in what the newsweekly calls the “most dangerous nation” on earth.
Last weekend, I was out in Southern California (just as the winds started to pick up) and had a chance to read the Los Angeles Times every day on dead tree pulp, rather than trying to find my way through the digital version online. That means you have a chance to pick through all of the pages of the physical newspaper and look for ghosts. Sure enough, there are lots of them. Feel those guilt pangs?
I am well aware that many Harry Potter fans want GetReligion to help them answer this question: If Albus Dumbledore had a gay skeleton in his closet, why didn’t reporter Rita Skeeter of the Daily Prophet include that information in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, her tacky, unauthorized, tell-all biography of the Hogwarts headmaster? Doesn’t that make his dark, dangerous and ultimately deadly relationship with the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald all the more scandalous? Or not?
I hit the wall on something this past weekend. But before I vent a bit, let’s flash back to one of the most candid and insightful statements in the New York Times self-study document (PDF) from a few years ago.
Talk about a loaded image. The Column One feature in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times focuses on how the World Wide Web has raised up some new African-American voices, some new points of view on politics, culture and, of course, religion.
As a college teacher, I really care about trends in all of the schools that send me students — schools both public and private.
A few years ago, I had the joy of watching Dr. Martin Marty tear up a stack of newspapers during a forum (here’s a column on that) about religion and the news at the University of Nebraska.
