Women

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New York Times omits crucial faith detail when covering release of some #ChibokGirls (updated)

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So what details do you remember from the #ChibokGirls news coverage? We are talking about the 300 or so girls who were kidnapped more than three years ago from a Nigerian village by Boko Haram militants and forced to marry the fighters, to serve as slaves or even to take part in terrorism raids.

Do you remember the online activism campaign, led by First Lady Michelle Obama and others, with the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag?

Maybe you remember the remarkable photos and videos from 2014, with the images of the girls sitting on the ground -- dressed in hijabs -- chanting Muslim prayers and verses from the Quran in Arabic.

This was a highly symbolic moment, since most of the kidnapped girls were from Christian families and they were forced to convert to the radicalized, violent brand of Islam pushed by Boko Haram.

Do you remember reading that most of the 300 girls were Christians?

That's a rather important detail that, believe it or not, the editors of The New York Times either forgot to include or chose to omit from the newspaper's main story -- "Years After Boko Haram Kidnapping, Dozens of Girls Are Freed, Nigeria Says" -- about the release of about 60 of the Chibok girls.

It's a gripping story. Still, search through this report and try to find the missing word "Christian" and the fact that these girls were forced to convert to Islam. Here is one key passage:

To much of the world, the mass abduction of nearly 300 girls from a Nigerian school as they prepared for exams three years ago was a shocking introduction to the atrocities and humanitarian crises caused by Boko Haram, galvanizing global attention to a militant group that had already been terrorizing Nigerians for years.


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Hijab hypocrisy: Why the BBC gets it

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Every now and then a piece comes out that is so insightful, one must call attention to it. I don’t usually run into stories like that on BBC’s web site but the following one made me take notice.

The headline “Why catwalk hijabs are upsetting some Muslim women” made me take notice.

A lot of us have noticed that fashion brands have been capitalizing on the hijab-like scarves that look glamorous enough but probably wouldn’t pass muster on the Islamic street. Head coverings are supposed to take one’s attention away from the woman -- whereas these scarves certainly drew attention.

So I was not surprised that some women are objecting. Better still was how the pros at BBC saw beneath it all. This passage is long, but it sets of the crucial insights.

Dolce and Gabbana, H&M, Pepsi, Nike: just a few of the big brands putting women wearing a hijab -- a traditional Islamic headscarf -- front and centre in advertising campaigns.
The hijab has long been a contentious topic of conversation; feminists, religious conservatives, secularists are some of the online communities that have engaged in passionate debate about what it represents. But this time, online and using social media, it's some Muslim women who are questioning the use of such images.
Tasbeeh Harwees, a journalist, recently wrote in the online magazine Good about a recent viral Pepsi advert starring Kendall Jenner. The advertisement was controversial because of its alleged trivialisation of street protests -- but some Muslim women took issue for a different reason, the casting of a hijab-wearing woman who photographs the rally.
"A multi-billion dollar company was using the image of a Muslim woman to project an image of progressiveness that it may not necessarily live up to," Harwees tells BBC Trending radio.

Then came some really interesting paragraphs.


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Why do some Catholics oppose the Girl Scouts? The Kansas City Star leaves out lots of details

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It’s no more Thin Mints, Trefoils or Do-Si-Dos for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City -- which is cutting all ties to the Girl Scouts, whose troops often meet on church property.

The Kansas City Star tried to explain it all in the article I’ll be dissecting below.

Before that, I do want to mention that my daughter is in her second year of Girl Scouts here in Washington state and she sold 132 boxes of cookies this past winter, which is pretty good for someone who did it door to door instead of having her mommy strong-arm fellow employees (which is what goes on in some families).

Plus, I was part of a troop in Connecticut many moons ago. I had to slog through the snow to sell cookies. Those have jumped from $4/box to $5 this year, of which the local troop only gets a fraction.

So what is going on in Kansas City. It appears that, these days, Girl Scouts is more of an ideology than an after-school activity for some folks:

Saying that Girl Scouts is “no longer a compatible partner in helping us form young women with the virtues and values of the Gospel,” the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas is severing ties with the organization and switching its support to a Christian-based scouting program.
“I have asked the pastors of the Archdiocese to begin the process of transitioning away from the hosting of parish Girl Scout troops and toward the chartering of American Heritage Girls troops,” Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann said in a statement released Monday.
“Pastors were given the choice of making this transition quickly, or to, over the next several years, ‘graduate’ the scouts currently in the program. Regardless of whether they chose the immediate or phased transition, parishes should be in the process of forming American Heritage Girl troops, at least for their kindergartners, this fall.”

As I scanned through the rest of the article, there was no mention of how many girls or troops this involves. How many troops meet at local Catholic churches? We’re not told.


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Yo, New York Times team: How do marriage, motherhood, Judaism affect Ivanka's agenda?

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So you sit down to read a long New York Times profile of Ivanka Trump that ran with this headline -- "Ivanka Trump Has the President’s Ear. Here’s Her Agenda."

The story has lots of room for details and nuance, while probing the ideas and convictions that shape her "Women who work" worldview and the branding image behind her life as a married mom with three children and a lightning rod last name.

Now, I certainly had an agenda when I read this piece. I was curious to know about the contents of this woman's head and how that affected her views -- as a modern Orthodox Jew -- of marriage and family.

So with that in mind, guess the one subject -- out of the following short list -- that is explored (or even mentioned) in this long profile.

(1) Jewish faith and tradition and its role in her home.

(2) The impact of her marriage to Jared Kushner and her life as a wife and mother.

(3) Her beliefs on religious liberty conflicts in America, including those sure to affect Orthodox Jewish believers.

(4) Her relationship with her father and, in particular, his track record when it comes to sensitivity to the feelings and ambitions of women (other than her).

If you guessed answer (4), then you are a winner and have a great future writing profiles of important Americans for the Times.


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Same old, same old: The Charlotte Observer tilts one way in women-as-Catholic-priests story

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Way back in the 1970s and very early 1980s, a Christian singer named Keith Green was quite popular. At the end of "Jesus Commands Us to Go," one of his more heartfelt songs, Green addresses his audience, saying, "I don't know what you think a Christian is. I've known so many people that think [being] a Christian means going to church a lot. You may have heard this before, but going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger."

That analogy has stayed with me, and it popped up when the Charlotte Observer informed us on the last Sunday in April that a "Rebel Catholic group defies church, ordains woman priest in NC."

Although the story somewhat begrudgingly points this out, it should be clear to serious observers that the church-Christian-McDonald's-hamburger analogy fits here: Calling yourself a Catholic "priest," even if done by a "rebel group," doesn't make you one, any more than calling myself a Big Mac would, you know....

From this oh, oh, oh so familiar article:

An international group defiantly opposed to the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women priests Sunday ordained its first woman Catholic priest in the 46 counties that make up the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte.
The ordination ceremony for Abigail Eltzroth happened in Asheville at Jubilee! – a nondenominational faith community – with Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan presiding.
Eltzroth, 64, said she is the second woman in North Carolina ordained by the rebel group, called the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. ...
But reached for comment Sunday, David Hains, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, said: “I hope that Catholics in the diocese will understand that it would be sinful to receive a fake sacrament from a woman priest and that includes attending a fake Mass.”

Although the Observer puts an official Roman Catholic Church spokesman's comments relatively high in the story, the overall tone of the piece is at least sympathetic towards, if not promoting of, the pro-women-priest camp. #Surprise


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Toronto Globe and Mail misses it on religious roots of sex-selective abortions

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Ten years ago, I wrote a four-part series about the horrific imbalance of boys and girls in India due to the rampant aborting of female fetuses. I spent three weeks in India tracking down doctors who were assisting in those abortions and activists who were trying to prevent them.

People kept on telling me that I needed to also check on whether female Indian immigrants to the United States were aborting their female children. I heard rumors that they were but I ran out of time and could not pursue that angle.

So I was glad to see that The Toronto Globe and Mail not only tackled the topic recently, but actually had some statistics to back it. However, the newspaper only told half of the story. As it said:

Fewer girls than boys are born to Indian women who immigrate to Canada, a skewed pattern driven by families whose mother tongue is Punjabi, according to a new study.
One of the most surprising findings of the study, to be published Monday in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, is that the preference for boys does not diminish, regardless of how long women from India have lived in Canada.
“It’s counterintuitive,” said Marcelo Urquia, a research scientist at the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Health Policy and lead author of the study. “We know that the longer immigrants are in Canada, the more likely they are to align to the host country.”

The longer they are in Canada? So western feminist values haven’t rubbed off at all? Are we sure that there is no religion ghost in this subject?


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Baylor again has a Baptist president — its first female head — and other relevant details on her hiring

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By now, you probably heard that scandal-plagued Baylor University has hired a new president — its first female one.

The lede from the Dallas Morning News' front-page report:

Baylor University has hired its first woman president in its 172-year history, the university announced Tuesday, as the school works to recover from its long-running sexual assault scandal.
Linda Livingstone, the dean of George Washington University’s business school and a former faculty member at Baylor, was the unanimous choice of the university’s regents, the school said.
She will begin June 1.
Livingstone steps in to steer the university after a sexual assault crisis led to the ousting of her predecessor last May. Baylor parted ways with university president Ken Starr, as well as the football coach and the athletic director, in a sweeping reaction to the school’s botched handling of rapes and other attacks, including those by football players.

Obviously, Baylor's decision to hire a woman to deal with its ongoing rape scandal is the major news development.

But GetReligion readers no doubt are interested in specific religious details concerning the new leader of "the world's largest Baptist university" — as the news media and Baylor itself often refer to the Waco, Texas, institution.

Such details are scattered throughout the secular newspaper and Christian media reports that we scanned. When put together, those accounts begin to paint a portrait of Livingstone's faith background.


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Hey CNN: To what does this 117-year-old Baptist deacon attribute her long, joyful life?

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As one would expect, journalists paid quite a bit of attention to the recent death of 117-year-old Emma Morano -- believed to be the last living person born in the 19th century. BBC noted that she "attributed her longevity to her genetics and a diet of three eggs a day, two of them raw." She lived through 90 Italian governments.

The people who pay close attention to stories of this kind immediately focused on the next "supercentenarian" -- someone older than 110 -- in the record book. That would be 117-year-old Violet Mosse-Brown of Jamaica, who is believed to be the last living subject of Queen Victoria. Her son is 97. 

It is an unwritten tradition that news stories about the world's oldest humans must include this question: To what do you attribute your health and long life? In the case of Brown, it was interesting to note the role of faith in the coverage.

As one would expect, the denominational Baptist Press jumped into the faith details. And CNN? Using information from a Jamaican newspaper, CNN merely noted:

... There is no secret formula to Brown's long life. "Really and truly, when people ask what me eat and drink to live so long, I say to them that I eat everything, except pork and chicken, and I don't drink rum and them things," Brown told The Gleaner.
Raised Christian, she has been a music teacher and church organist for over 80 years. After her husband's death in 1997, she took over his responsibilities and became a record-keeper for the local cemetery, a job she continued well after her 100th birthday.

Brown was merely "raised" as a generic Christian? She was an employee in that church for eight decades? She lives in Jamaica and avoids rum?

On the other side of the pond, The Independent offered a bit more of that, in a quote from the woman herself:

Violet Mosse-Brown, also known as Aunt V, was born on 10 March 1900 in Duanvale, Trelawny, Jamaica. She attributes her longevity to her “faith in serving God “ and her genes. 

Apparently, this woman is not shy when it comes to talking about her faith.


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Future of Fox News: Will moral conservatives keep buying what Bill O'Reilly is selling?

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Future of Fox News: Will moral conservatives keep buying what Bill O'Reilly is selling?

In a way, this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to tun that in) isn't really about the religion angle in a major mainstream news story. No, this episode is a lot stranger than that.

Here are the two key equations at the heart of my latest conversation with host Todd Wilken.

First of all, millions and millions of Americans watch talk-TV commentary shows -- usually the ones featuring hosts with political and cultural views that mirror their own -- and it appears that they think they are watching the news. This happens on the left (think MSNBC and most of CNN) and it also happens, of course, on the right with Fox News.

The bottom line: Millions of Americans do not know the difference between basic news and advocacy news and commentary. They don't understand that many journalists are still committed to keeping bias, opinion and open advocacy out of their news work. This is having a serious impact on public discourse.

Meanwhile, there is this second fact: Millions of moral, cultural and religious conservatives are watching Fox News day after day, night after night, without giving any thought to what BRAND of conservatism is driving the particular commentary show that they are watching. (NOTE: Fox News does have one or two news shows left, such as Special Report, that mix basic news reports with commentary, often from panelists on the left, right and middle. It is interesting that this show was originally created by Brit Hume, a religious and cultural conservative with a long and solid background in mainstream news.)

Truth is, the whole Fox News operation has never been all that interested in the role that religion plays in America and the world, other than a few segments dedicated -- think "Christmas wars" -- to hot-button topics. Yes, commentator Todd Starnes focuses on religion quite a bit in his opinion pieces and analysis work on radio, but that isn't hard news or prime-time material.

So why would Fox News have little or no interest in religion?


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