Terry Mattingly

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In Bible Belt, after massacre in a church, is executing Dylann Roof a 'security' question?

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Hey journalists. Have you ever watched the local news coverage of a news event in which you -- as a citizen, as opposed to being there as a reporter -- were an active participant?

This has happened to me a few times, primarily when my own local church gets involved in some kind of cause. That's what happened long ago in Charlotte when I took part in a midnight prayer vigil in opposition to North Carolina's use of the death penalty. Frequent readers of this blog over the years are probably aware that I am totally opposed to the death penalty, just as I am opposed to abortion and euthanasia.

This particular event in my past provides the background for my comments on the Washington Post story about the death penalty and the Dylann Roof case down in South Carolina. The headline: "What to expect as prosecutors try to persuade jurors to sentence Dylann Roof to death." 

This story ran, for some reason, under a "National Security" header.

Now, our own Bobby Ross Jr. has tons lots of critiques of media coverage linked to the role that religious faith -- especially concepts of grace and forgiveness -- have played in events surrounding this crime and its aftermath. Click here, please, to look through some of that. It's really hard to cover stories linked to the death penalty without getting into religious territory. This is especially true in the American heartland.

This brings me back to that midnight prayer vigil in Charlotte, which took place in an Episcopal church near downtown. The church sanctuary and nave were dark -- candles only, except for a reader's light on the pulpit -- when the television crew entered. People were praying silently and then, every 10 minutes or so, there would be readings from scripture.

In that era, portable light rigs for television cameras were really outrageous. Then the lights were on the camera guy made him look like an approaching UFO as he walked -- I am not joking -- down the center aisle filming people praying in the candlelight. He kept going until he was past the pulpit and up near the altar, shining those glaring lights back into everyone's eyes during a Bible reading.

People were rather upset. There we were on our knees praying for the state not to use the death penalty and, well, we pretty much wanted to kill that camera guy with a barrage of prayerbooks.


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: Global stories that clicked at the Lapido Media website

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Clearly, anyone who wants to understand the modern world (hello administrators at the vast majority of modern seminaries) needs to take a class or two in media literacy.

At the same time, it has become increasingly obvious that most of the journalists who manage newsrooms (hello Dean Baquet of The New York Times) need to have some kind of systematic, professional training in religious literacy.

On the other side of the Atlantic, there is an organization called Lapido Media that is working hard to build bridges to major newsrooms in the United Kingdom and beyond. The Media Project -- the continuing education umbrella project that includes GetReligion.org -- recently cooperated with Lapido Media in an effort to produce a newsroom-friendly book entitled "Religious Literacy: An Introduction." I wrote the final chapter in the book and GetReligion readers that get the book will see many links to themes at this website.

(I should also mention that the headline on the website feature about the book needs to be fixed, since this is not "the first" handbook of this kind, since the Religion News Association -- to give credit where credit is due --  has done similar booklets on this topic in the past, which evolved into the entire ReligionLink project.)

Now, the Lapido team has released an interesting set of feature stories from its website to mark the end of 2016. GetReligion readers with a special interest in global news should click here and check this out.

Some of the subjects include: 

'ISLAMIC STATE ARE MUSLIMS, THEIR DOCTRINES ISLAMIC': BBC HEAD
BBC Head of Religion, Aaqil Ahmed chose a Lapido event to clarify the BBC's use of the term 'so-called Islamic State' in our unprecedented most-read article of the year.

Also, this:


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: Crux takes several looks at surprising year in Catholic news

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So how much Catholic news was there in 2016.

Apparently quite a bit, and we are not just talking about angry Catholic voters in depressed corners of the Rust Belt, as in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Thus, the journalists in the team at Crux didn't produce one list of Catholic stories, when preparing to mark the end of 2016. They went with four lists, I think. Maybe there are more.

It won't surprise you that the ever quotable Pope Francis got one list all by himself. Of course, there's quite a bit of info linked to Amoris Laetitia and the reaction to it. 

Then there's a list of developments at the global level. This includes updates on clergy sexual abuse and the persecution of Catholics in various locations. However, the section that I think will interest most readers is the take on the role of faith in the Brexit debates, battles over the treatment of refugees and the struggle to define what is and isn't "European," in terms of thinking about the future.

Finally, there is an essay with this headline: "Looking back at 2016, the Year of Surprises: Church in the U.S." Yes, the elections get some digital ink. However, the really interesting material is related to the elections on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Here is a long chunk of that:

... The election of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles as president and vice-president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops just ten days after Trump captured the White House was also noteworthy.


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: The Forward tunes in dizzying set of Jewish opinions

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When you think of The Forward, you probably think of a progressive Jewish website with a flair for interesting story angles on politics and trends in Judaism -- secular and religious -- with the occasional pop-culture and/or social media spin.

In other words, at the moment, "50 Things To Fear From the Trump Administration" right next to "5 Easy Hangover-Relieving Recipes to Make Today."

That's the ticket.

Well, The Forward also has a new corner of the website called Scribe, in which readers and commentators from all over -- 250 contributors from six continents -- offer their take on the world. It launched in July and the editors marked the end of 2016 -- naturally -- with a Top 10 items list.

Now, I am not going to list all of them. Click here to head over and see this feature for yourself. However, I am going to show you a sample of the list, in part to demonstrate that this is not your normal liberal Jewish blitz of content.

Now, it starts with something quite newsy and also rather predictable, in light of news trends linked to You Know What in this election year:

1: Anti-Semitism in America is Nothing New. Don’t Deny Jewish History and Culture by Calling Us “White”

The next item is also from the edgy progressive, multi-cultural, even virtue signalling side of things. As in:

2: Jews Should Register as Muslims 
But then we hit the third item in the list. Sit down before clicking on through to get to this one!
3: I’m a Jew, and I’m a Member of the Alt-Right


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: Christianity Today offers lists blitz, including election Top 10

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So how many 2016 yearender lists did the Christianity Today news, commentary and, well, devotional team crank out?

Frankly, I'm not sure that I got them all.

Unless I missed it somehow, what you will not find here is a traditional Top 10 list of the year's major religion news stories and trends. Did I miss that somehow? If I did, someone let me know. Just leave a comment with the URL and I will update this.

I especially appreciated the list offering the magazine and website's top 2016 stories focusing on the persecution of the church around the world -- a topic that trends to point to a wide variety of important topics linked to the safety of religious minorities in general.

You also have the Top 10 CT articles of the year, the Top 10 conversion stories, a list ranking the year's cover stories, the year's top news-blog items and even the Top 10 Christmas stories.

But you knew that this one was coming, right? There is also a Top 10 list of Christianity Today's most-read articles about the 2016 elections. Here are a few of those headlines to scan.

Click here to read the whole list.


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: Religion News Service publishes its own 'best of' list

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The Religion News Service published its own yearender list -- kind of.

Rather than the top religion-beat news events of the year, apparently this 2016 "best of" collection featured the stories that the RNS staff considered their favorites, perhaps even focusing on stories that hit close to home for the writers.

Click here to read this whole feature, complete with the URLs to the stories themselves.

But here are some headlines and ledes to scan, as formatted by the non-profit news service and its team. The result is kind of an eclectic list of sidebars and features, offering commentary on the year and a few major events.

The best news story in the set? Check out the feature by veteran Adelle Banks on efforts to encourage "end of life" conversations among clergy and members of religious congregations. 

And back to the list: 

After 40 years of women rabbis, a Q&A with the first
By Lauren Markoe | December 8, 2016
(RNS) A self-described private person, Sally Priesand didn’t want to be a pioneer. She just wanted to be a rabbi.
Meet the soft-spoken US-born rabbi challenging Israel’s religious establishment
By Michele Chabin | November 30, 2016
JERUSALEM (RNS) The Modern Orthodox rabbi founded ITIM, an organization that helps converts and others navigate the religious establishment’s legendary bureaucracy.


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: tmatt tweaks the official RNA poll results, saying ...

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While Donald Trump's crusade to win the White House was the top story of 2016, journalists in the Religion News Association saluted the brash billionaire's opponents by giving their top honor to the Muslim parents who made headlines by denouncing him.

Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Gold Star parents of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq, shared the Religion Newsmaker of the Year honor. The Khans made a dramatic Democratic National Convention appearance to proclaim that Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the country would be unconstitutional.

The RNA description of the annual poll's No. 1 story stressed that Trump received "strong support from white Christians, especially evangelicals. … Many were alarmed by his vilifying Muslims and illegal immigrants and his backing from white supremacists. GOP keeps majorities in Congress."

The No. 2 story continued: "Post-election assaults and vandalism target Muslims and other minorities. Some assailants cite Donald Trump's victory as validation. Critics denounce the appointment of Stephen Bannon as White House strategist over his ties to white supremacists." News related to Trump appeared in three other RNA Top 10 stories.

While white evangelical votes were crucial, I would have stressed two other religion trends linked to Trump's stunning win.

The first was captured in a mid-summer Christianity Today headline that, citing Pew Research Center polling, stated, "Most Evangelicals Will Vote Trump, But Not For Trump." Pew found that more than half of white evangelicals were upset about 2016 White House options and said their aim was to defeat Hillary Clinton, not support Trump.

Election Night plot twists also showed that Clinton lost because she lacked support from Rust Belt working-class Democrats, many from Catholic, labor-union homes that twice backed President Barack Obama.

The RNA Top 10 selections did not include items linked to bitter battles over religious liberty, Obama White House orders on transgender rights or the Supreme Court opening caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.


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Parade of 2016 yearenders: Official word from Religion News Association saith ...

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Want to have some fun?

Here is the official list of the results of the Religion News Association's Top 10 religion-beat news stories in 2016.

Needless to say, picking the ballot for this poll is hard. Wording the questions is even harder. 

So here is your challenge, especially at the top of this list. Look at stories No. 1 and No. 2. How would you have worded them? What major religion events and trends, in your opinion, didn't make the Top 10? Where there major omissions from the ballot itself? Scroll down and look at the items that were not at the top of the list.

Go for it.

1) Donald Trump gets strong support from white Christians, especially evangelicals, in an upset presidential election. Many were alarmed by his vilifying Muslims and illegal immigrants and his backing from white supremacists. GOP keeps majorities in Congress.

2) Post-election assaults and vandalism target Muslims and other minorities. Some assailants cite Donald Trump's victory as validation. Critics denounce the appointment of Stephen Bannon as White House strategist over his ties to white supremacists.


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Not sure what to think piece: If news is our 'New Religion,' what's the impact of this faith?

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For years now, I have been pointing GetReligion readers toward a classic 2004 PressThink essay entitled "Journalism Is Itself a Religion," by Prof. Jay Rosen of New York University.

This is not an essay about the state of religion-news coverage, at least that is not the primary topic that Rosen takes on. He is talking about the ways that journalism wrestles with concepts of truth, which often results in journalists assuming an authoritative role in public discourse that can evolve into a semi-religious state of mind.

You can, of course, hear echoes of this in our current discussions of politics in a "post-truth" age (in which the old standards of journalism have been splintered by the Internet, among other things). Who is supposed to be in charge of determining what is "true" news and what is, well, "fake news?"

That would be the journalistic establishment, of course.

So, more than a decade ago, Rosen tossed around some ideas for a proposed course at NYU or Columbia University. The title would be "The Religion of the Press.” A key issue would be the nature of the "priesthood" in modern news. Something like this:

Understanding the Priesthood of the Press. This course will examine the priesthood of the journalism profession in the United States, especially those at top news organizations in New York and Washington. Among the questions we’ll be asking this term: How does this elite group create and maintain its authority over what counts as serious journalism? What sense of duty goes along with being one of the high priests? What are the god terms and faith objects in journalism, and how are they derived? ... 
You get the idea.


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