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It’s time for the obligatory update on you know what. In the media blitz, the most interesting angle (at least to me) is that the New York Times has joined the Los Angeles Times in wondering out loud about Sony Pictures’ decision not to allow critics to dissect the movie in advance. Here is how reporter Sharon Waxman deals with the buzz and the whispers:
Our friends on the other side of the religion-and-journalism sanctuary aisle are looking for some additional scribes. Check out this help-wanted notice from the folks at The Revealer media blog (source of the photo). Here is a clip:
A GetReligion reader named Matt, commenting on the letter from Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush, raised an insightful point that I wish I had known and mentioned. But this is the Internet and there is plenty of room for follow-up:
Back in the summer of 1983, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was allowed to leave South Africa to attend the World Council of Churches assembly in Vancouver, British Columbia. This was a major event, in large part because no one knew if the apartheid government would let him back into his homeland.
As I stressed in my recent “Who is Dan Brown?” piece for the Da Vinci Dialogue site, the author of Da Book that is being turned into Da Movie isn’t terribly fond of facing tough questions about his work or his beliefs.
Did you hear that Oprah Winfrey is the reincarnation of God? Well, at least according to USA Today. Reporter Ann Oldenburg did just about everything but say Oprah was the sister of Jesus Christ in a 2,000-plus-word profile in Thursday’s edition.
Like everyone else in the world, I bet I’m going to go see The Da Vinci Code. But not because I expect it to be great or even a fun, brainless action flick. It’s more that I’m in a perpetual state of trying to understand how a book as ridiculous as The Da Vinci Code could enable Dan Brown to sit comfortably on piles of cash for the rest of his life. I had a colleague in my newsroom a few years ago who pronounced it the best book she’d ever read. How sad is that? Do readers really want three-page chapters? And do they need their characters reintroduced on every page? Was the book written for people suffering from short-term memory loss? Why why why?
The Washington Post headline said it all: “Some Parents Who Shy From Religion Want Their Children to Taste Its Psychological and Spiritual Comforts.” (As a former copy editor, I ask, “What was that? A double decker six- or eight-column headline in 36-point type?)
Here is the New York Times today, adding a few kind words about the late A.M. “Abe” Rosenthal, an elite journalist who in the 1990s became a hero to those of us who are deeply committed to those familiar freedoms of the First Amendment. He was passionate about freedom of the press and freedom of religion, even for unpopular religious minorities.
