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Let me pause to plug an item or two over at Rod “Crunchy Con” Dreher’s blog, in large part because he has veered totally into GetReligion territory with repeated appeals for journalists to actually cover the doctrinal contents of the current story about Pope Benedict XVI and Islam.
Godbeat reporter Teresa Watanabe has a report out in the Los Angeles Times about a hot skirmish on the front lines of interfaith life. The issue? Should the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission reaffirm its selection of veteran Muslim leader Maher Hathout to receive a major human-relations award after two weeks of hot debate? Only four of the 14 commission members ended up voting for him, but that was enough — due to those who declined (were afraid?) to cast a vote.
Covering a bunch of local stories that evolve into a national trend is difficult for a reporter, but Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times did it quite handily Monday in an article on how the Internal Revenue Service is keeping its eye on religious groups come political season. The article is appropriately timed. In keeping with the Times‘ profile as a national paper, focused little on anything related to New York City. Instead, Goodstein painted in broad strokes and explored trends.
Sister Leonella already had a bodyguard and the gunmen in Mogadishu killed him, too. The short Associated Press report carried in the Chicago Tribune clearly states what we know — or think we know — at the moment.
As an individual piece of journalism, last week’s Washington Post article on how a church is using a skateboarding park to share the message of the gospel is excellent. Its appropriately edgy style is matched by a straightforward accounting of the facts and a description of an hour or two spent observing the high-flying action:
Here are some random thoughts this misty Saturday morning while I’m reading the free-speech fallout on the wire services.
And thus it came to pass: The content of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech stopped being the story — including the fact that the speech was an attack on secularism in the West — and the reaction of many Muslim leaders became the story.
Actually, that is not the issue right now as we finish day two of this media storm, a day dominated — to the tune of 1,000 major media reports or so — by Muslim outrage about Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks in Germany about faith, reason and jihad. Click here for an early but updated collection of public reactions to his words, gathered by the awesome Christianity Today weblog crew.
