By way of a news story from Religion News Service, readers learn:
Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes again, here in GetReligion land
What is the X-factor in Syrian bloodshed? DUH! (updated)
It seems that many networkers in the online world remain fired up about that recent Washington Post explainer that ran under the headline “9 questions about Egypt you were too embarrassed to ask.” That’s the one you may recall, in part because of this GetReligion post, that was the first of many similar mainstream media pieces that have tried to explain the rising violence in Syria without including information about its crucial religious divisions.
Imagine Pope Francis; help artists win prizes
So, unless you have spent quite a bit of time on another planet in recent months, you probably know that Pope Francis is a rock star in global mass media and that condition will probably continue until he stands up in some crucial public-square location — Comedy Central perhaps — and makes a bunch of statements defending Catholic moral teachings.
Sun does it again: Ghost in the Ngata and Suggs friendship
So, the National Football League season starts tonight with the world-champion Baltimore Ravens returning (due to a baseball schedule issue here in Charm City) to Denver to play the other beloved team of my heart, the Broncos.
Hey AP: Where is religious left on religious liberty issues?
A long, long time ago, 1998 to be precise, I wrote a column marking the 10th anniversary of my weekly “On Religion” column for the Scripps Howard News Service. I opened it with an observation about one of the major changes I had witnessed on the religion beat during the previous 20 years or so.
PBS: Understanding Syria (minus any nasty religion stuff)
This weekend I mentioned an online explainer piece served up by The Washington Post that pointed readers toward essential Twitter feeds linked to the civil war in Syria. The news-you-can-use pledge: Read these Twitter feeds and you’ll know what you need to know to understand the chaos and bloodshed in Syria.
How to follow totally secular Syria news on Twitter
The goal here at GetReligion is, of course, to look at the good and the bad in mainstream news coverage of religion events and trends. This means we devote 99 percent of our time to news articles. That’s no surprise.
WWROD? What does sharia law look like in practice?
The other day, in a discussion of events in Egypt, I noted — once again — that there is no one Islam, no monolithic version of the same faith. The same thing is true of Islamic law, even among people who believe that they want to live in a society that is ruled in accordance with sharia. Click here to go back and catch up on that.
