Reuters religion editor Tom Heneghan has just used one of those verbs that taints an entire news story. At least, I think that “Pope’s ‘Living Will’ Wants Life Support to the End” is supposed to be a hard news story about the implications of a major papal address. Then again there is this: “The Catholic Church has traditionally taught that doctors and families could end artificial life-extending measures in good conscience if a dying patient’s prospects seemed hopeless. John Paul, who has long railed against a ‘culture of death’ he saw in abortion and artificial birth control, surprised moral theologians in a speech in March 2004 by insisting Catholics can no longer make such decisions even in extreme cases.” Whoa! Spot the loaded verb?

During the 25 years or so I have been studying the religion beat, I have read more than my share of stories and statistics about media bias. It is still a subject that makes headlines several times a year, with roots running deep into the world of politics as well as religion.