Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
As we recently demonstrated, your friends here at GetReligion admire the work of the young Jon Meacham at Newsweek. At least, we admire his skills as an essay writer whose editorial point of view would be right at home at Episcopal News Service.
Labels for premarital rituals are oddly controversial. Whether you call it dating, courtship, hooking up or just hanging out, these labels carry with them all sorts of baggage.
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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.
