Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Sometimes a story full of quotes and graphic descriptions can get to the heart of an issue better than a story heavy in theory and complex details. A person can know all the facts and the statistics about abortion, but can that person really know what an abortion is?
Believe it or not, I have had a warm spot in my religion-writer heart for actress Shirley MacLaine ever since she stood up in front of the American Society of Newspaper Editors long ago and delivered a sermon on why there is more to religion news than warfare and denominational politics. Three cheers for candid people with good soundbites.
On one level, this is your typical New York City real estate story with Chelsea neighborhood residents fighting like, well, New Yorkers to preserve the sanctity of their turf and rare views of the sky.
The official Vatican document at the heart of the “gay-priest ban” story is now available online and it turns out that the leaked version was accurate, only it was missing the footnotes from the authors. We may hear more about that in the next day or so.
Religious liberty is a tricky thing. From a legal perspective, the matter is hardly settled, so the recent nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court is bound to have a significant impact.
You just have to laugh at this kind of headline, if you are part of a church that takes the liturgical calendar seriously.
Within the larger story of Hurricane Katrina there was an amazing story about journalism — the stunning performance of the journalists at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Not only did this newspaper continue to cover the disaster, they did so with few if any resources since their own organization was caught up in the storm. Shut down, the newspaper evolved into a blog that continued — 24/7, as best it could — to break stories.
Our friends over at Beliefnet.com have posted an online poll that, to my way of thinking, precisely captures the MSM understanding of the current controversy over the Vatican and gay seminarians.
When conducting interviews, most reporters conduct themselves knowing that their notes, questions and side remarks will never be seen by anyone other than themselves, even their editor. In the rare occurrence of a subpoena of their notes, a handful of lawyers may have the opportunity to pour over the material, but it would be extremely unusual for the world to have that opportunity.
