Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
In the mythology of journalism, there is this story about a chart that is — or so it is said — hanging on the wall of a generic Associated Press bureau. The chart is supposed to help editors figure out the news value of disasters that take place around the world, when it comes time to decide which stories end up on page one and which ones are buried inside.
If one looks up “reform” in a dictionary, it’s obvious that, when used as a label, this is a pretty good finger-pointing word, a term that separates the good guys from the bad guys. For example, when used as a verb:
What we have here is another one of those branding stories, kind of like the old trend story about Southern Baptist churches taking “Baptist” off their church signs or a certain purple campus in Fort Worth that is trying to focus on a TCU image, as opposed to the old Texas You Know What University thing.
I have been on the road all week so I must confess that I am way behind on my Summer of Sex readings, which is that annual wave of mainstream-media coverage of debates in the oldline Protestant denominations about you know what.
Does anyone out there remember that recent post about that bizarre and very powerful narcotics gang down in Mexico that calls itself La Familia Michoacana? If that doesn’t ring a bell, you may remember the following memorable headline about this bunch in Time magazine: “Mexico’s Meth Warriors: Fueled by Evangelical zeal and America’s appetite for meth, a provincial Mexican gang breaks into the big time.”
One would have to conclude, after reading the latest Washington Post hymn to the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, that we are witnessing the end of an era in which old Southern Democrats walked the earth like complex, even troubled, men of the people.
You may recall a recent post by Bobby Ross Jr., about a press release that the Associated Press published about the Claremont School of Theology’s plan to start providing theological education for Muslim imams and Jewish rabbis, as well as clergy for United Methodist and other liberal mainline Protestant congregations.
If you are a fan of professional football — especially if you live in Nashville or Baltimore — the July 4th weekend marked the anniversary of the murder of Steve McNair.
