Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Here we go again, only this time GetReligion is requesting a correction from The Washington Post. We recently discovered that the copy desk at The New York Times takes corrections very seriously, going so far as to dig back into history and correct past mistakes as well as the one that was bugging us.
The British papers have been having fun with the recent move of the Rev. Joanna Jepson to the London College of Fashion, where she’ll serve as chaplain. And before you ask, yes it does happen to be Fashion Week here at GetReligion. Anyway, here is some sample copy: Is God the new black? How could a benevolent God permit the latest Roberto Cavalli collection? Heavenly bodies and unholy tantrums get God. Curate fashions a catwalk pulpit, etc. etc.
On a more ominous side of religion-morality coverage of the World Cup, the most obvious and glaring case is the legalization and promotion of prostitution in Germany. The New York Times did a somewhat wishy-washy piece dealing largely with the business of prostitution while failing to give proper attention to the horrors of sex trafficking:
I’ve been on a few beaches this summer. I plan to be on a few more. And, with my unhealthy obsession with fashion, I have analyzed and overanalyzed the latest swimsuit trends. So while I’m glad that The Washington Post‘s Pulitzer prize-winning fashion reporter Robin Givhan turned her critical eye to swimwear, I can’t say I’m sure she’s hit on something sweeping the nation’s sandy areas. I can’t say the nation’s beaches are beset by overly modest women.
When it comes to the religion beat, there are stories that contain minefields and then there are stories that contain minefields so big that they are almost impossible to survive with the story intact.
Last week found me stumbling around trying to write about religious issues in the World Cup. The event is one of the most significant worldwide. Certainly there were more religious issues than merely an immature head-butting, we thought.
Some ghosts are just too obvious to miss. But sadly, in an attempt to cram reams of issues into an eight-minute radio broadcast, National Public Radio did what so many media outlets do in attempt to write about Islam: give theological issues the short stick.
Details on the perpetrators of Tuesday’s horrific bombings of the Mumbai train system are still scant, but investigators are considering it the work of Islamic extremists from Pakistan. As further details come in, it will be important for journalists to sort out the messy theological details of the group and whether it is connected to a more international Islamic terrorism effort.
