Terry Mattingly

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10 years of GetReligion: Why we are still here, part II

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Truth be told, your GetReligionistas do not have the power to bust ghosts. However, we have been known to spot ghosts on a regular basis and to sound warnings. Ultimately, only the editors and reporters who work in mainstream newsrooms can do anything about all of the religion ghosts that haunt so many of their news reports.

So what is this “ghost” thing all about and why, for the past 10 years, has this concept mattered so much to us here at GetReligion? Let me explain.

Many of our readers continue to assume that GetReligion.org exists (a) to provide coverage of religion news events or (b) to provide a platform for people who want to argue about religious doctrines and trends in the past, present and future. In response, we keep chanting: This is not a religion-news site. This is a site about how many professionals in the mainstream press struggle to cover — to “get” — religion news.


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10 years of GetReligion: Why we are still here, part I

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The late Leonard Smith was, according to his Jan. 26 obituary at the Greenwich Time newspaper in Southwest Connecticut, a radically independent man who never hid his beliefs. A native of New York City, he was World War II veteran and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He liked to sail and raise hunting dogs. He was devoted to his wife and five kids, to the churches they frequented and to charities. I have a strong suspicion that quite a few faithful GetReligion readers would have liked Mr. Smith — a whole lot.

Why is that? Consider this passage at the end of his obituary:

Leonard Smith hated pointless bureaucracy, thoughtless inefficiency and bad ideas born of good intentions. He loved his wife, admired and respected his children and liked just about every dog he ever met. He will be greatly missed by those he loved and those who loved him. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you cancel your subscription to The New York Times.


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ESPN spots a ghost in the Seattle-Russell Wilson lovefest

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Some GetReligion readers may have noticed that there is a big football game later today. One of the teams involved in the Super Bowl this year is the Seattle Seahawks and, as always, the team’s quarterback — in this case second-year starter Russell Wilson — is getting quite a bit of attention, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, Wilson is short by NFL standards, standing only 5-foot-11. Second, he is one of those guys who walks into a room and is instantly recognized as a leader, sort of like my all-time sports heroes Bill Russell and Mike Singletary.

Finally, Wilson is rather open about his Christian faith and beliefs, although his style is more subdued than a Tim Tebow.


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Concerning AP and the Vatican's 'glass ceiling' for women

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Your GetReligionistas received several angry emails this past week about the following Associated Press story, each of them triggered by a single unattributed term in the piece. In The Washington Post, this piece ran under the following headline: Nothing unusual there of course, unless you, like me, were surprised to see the Post copy desk go with an upper-case “C” on the word Church, which is Catholic tradition but not AP style.

No, what set our readers off — some of them non-Catholics, by the way — was a pair of words near the top of this alleged work of straightforward news copy.

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis … lauded women for their sensitivity toward the society’s weak and “gifts” like intuition, insisting they take on greater responsibilities in the Catholic church, as well as in professional and public spheres.


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Concerning AP and the Vatican's 'glass ceiling' for women

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Your GetReligionistas received several angry emails this past week about the following Associated Press story, each of them triggered by a single unattributed term in the piece. In The Washington Post, this piece ran under the following headline: Nothing unusual there of course, unless you, like me, were surprised to see the Post copy desk go with an upper-case “C” on the word Church, which is Catholic tradition but not AP style.

No, what set our readers off — some of them non-Catholics, by the way — was a pair of words near the top of this alleged work of straightforward news copy.

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis … lauded women for their sensitivity toward the society’s weak and “gifts” like intuition, insisting they take on greater responsibilities in the Catholic church, as well as in professional and public spheres.


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New bishop in Harrisburg: One story, one side, one problem

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OK, gentle readers, once again I need to stress that the following post on a recent story in The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.) focuses on a journalism issue in this story, not the tensions centering on the appointment of a particular Catholic bishop to a particular post in the American hierarchy. This post is also not a commentary on what Catholic leaders have or have not done about the decades of sexual abuse of children and teen-agers by clergy or the cover-up of some of these crimes. I mean, my views on this issue are clear. No, this is a post about the construction of a particular new report. In many ways, this post is an example of one of the most disturbing trends that your GetReligionistas have seen in religion-news coverage over the past decade.

The headline hints at the central problem: “Victims advocate: Appointment of Bishop Ronald Gainer the most distressing promotion yet from Pope Francis.”

The top official for a national group that advocates on behalf of people who have been abused by Catholic priests on Friday denounced the appointment of the new bishop of the Harrisburg Diocese.


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Read this story and weep! But ask a few more questions

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Every now and then, I receive private emails, or emails sent through our contact link, that sound something like this: So why aren’t you guys writing about this story? You afraid to or are you just too prejudiced or only interested in stories that allegedly attack conservative Christians. Then the email will include a link to a news story — almost all of them perfectly valid — that talks about an event or a subject in which a minority religious group (in the American context, in most cases) is being attacked or treated badly.

In other words a story rather like the following Associated Press report, which ran at the ABC News site under this headline: “ACLU Accuses La. School of Religious Harassment.” More on that in a minute.

Now the problem is that many of these stories are actually rather ordinary. They get the job done and there isn’t really much to comment on — negative or positive — in terms of the nuts-and-bolts of journalism. Here’s the bottom line: Most of the time, what these correspondents want to do is argue about THE ISSUE at the heart of the story, not a journalism issue in the new coverage.


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Now who was that Joseph guy in the old story from Genesis?

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Former GetReligionista Brad Greenberg passed along this interesting item from Twitter, which barely requires commentary of any kind. However, since commentary is what we do here, let’s start off with a bit of biblical context for this amazing correction from The New York Times. This famous story from the book of Genesis is offered here with no implied connection whatsoever to current economic conditions here in the United States of America or anywhere else. Honest. The great Gray Lady brought this up.

We will start with the voice of Joseph, in verse 33:

“… Now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land and take one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plentiful years. And let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that are to occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine.”


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Got news? Prayers and poetry in the violent Ukraine standoff

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The daily march of the headlines from Kiev continues. The other day, I offered up a post linked to an amazing Associated Press photo of a quarter of Orthodox Christians, including at least one priest and one monk, who put themselves in the line of fire in between a wall of riot police and the brick-tossing demonstrators. Click here to catch up on that.

I want to return to that subject for a moment (also watch for an upcoming Crossroads podcast with George Conger on Ukraine coverage), because several Orthodox readers of this site have sent me links to additional information about what is happening with those priests and monks. It appears that their public witness for peace is continuing?

As George has been stressing in his posts, it’s important to realize that — in part due to the complexities of post-Soviet life in this region — there are two major Eastern Orthodox bodies and hierarchies in Ukraine, one aligned with Russia and the other is an autonomous Ukrainian church.


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