Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Whenever I speak at Christian colleges and universities, I always find flocks of students who, when I ask them to name their dream full-time jobs, stress that they want to cover topics linked to entertainment, not hard news.
Your GetReligionistas, as you know, rarely comment on editorials, especially those of the op-ed variety that offer the point of view of one scribe with an attitude. However, official editorials that express the beliefs of the newspaper’s editorial board often, in my humble opinion, offer insights into the thinking of newsroom professionals when it comes to complex and controversial topics in the news.
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.
Trust me, I understand that for many religious leaders — some on the left, but armies on the doctrinal right — it feels good to unleash a holy flood of anger at the mainstream press from time to time. Frankly, I am amazed that newsrooms don’t get picketed every now and then by people with incense and holy water.
Back in my Colorado journalism days, I attended a national conference that drew a wide variety of people who backed the ordination of women. As I walked around the campground scribbling notes (often with a sharp journalist named Douglas LeBlanc), I became aware of just how much diversity was present in that body of believers.
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.
As long-time readers will recall, one of the basic religion-news templates used in the mainstream press is closely linked to a theological term — “theodicy.” While many people will define this term in different ways, the discussions almost always spiral back to this question: Why does evil exist in a universe created by a loving God?
As GetReligion readers keep reminding us in the comments pages, it is getting harder and harder to know how to do news critiques of essays, commentaries, editorials and the occasional news reports that appear in the once towering weekly news magazines — by which I mean Time and nonNewsweek.
At least 10 years ago, a conservative Catholic friend of mine told me something that totally changed how I viewed this whole era of clergy sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.
