Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Alas, I am sad to report that there are no ghosts at all in Newsweek‘s much ballyhooed front-page exclusive look behind the secret curtain that hid the real President George W. Bush from the eyes of the secular world during his lengthy trip to Russia for the G8 summit. This is the feature story with the heavy subheadline “Behind the Scenes With President Bush As the Middle East Explodes.”
It’s so difficult to write about Ann Coulter. Sometimes I think that those of us who do are all pawns in her game of making hoards of money. Having read her first book — which was harsh but not a bad read at all — I have come to the conclusion that she writes them and then inserts completely over the top and uncharitable statements at the last minute. This is for the sole purpose of having the mainstream media get outraged and bring her on the air to discuss it. She then goes home and watches the Amazon counter spin out of control.
I could go on and on. These are some of the names that you will not encounter in the recent New York Times feature story by Alan Finder about the struggles that some Southern Baptist state conventions are having with their colleges.
Ross Douthat, an associate editor at The Atlantic, wrote an inspired piece in the August/September edition of First Things taking apart, piece by piece, theories about a “theocracy movement” in America. Here’s a snippet:
I read an op-ed in Monday’s New York Times that has stayed with me. It’s not religious in the sense that we normally discuss on these pixels, but I can’t help but think it’s a great example of how religious writing could be deepened.
I think a key question here is still left unanswered: [Kris] Fuhr of Provident Films told you “she was told” that proselytizing was quite specifically the reason for the PG rating. [Joan] Graves of MPAA tells the LAT that religion and evangelizing had exactly NOTHING to do with it.
Buried throughout this New York Times piece on the attempts of conservatives to get into the documentary film business is the question of whether these conservatives are motivated by something more than a political desire to promote conservative ideas.
A 6,800-word Los Angeles Times article by Glenn Bunting on the cigar-chomping, money-making, deal-cutting multibillionaire Philip Anschutz is a piece of journalism for which newspapers live.
