Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
There seems to have been a major misunderstanding of my post about veteran religion writer Julia Duin’s “Killing Eve” series in The Washington Times about sexism in India, with its main focus centering on gender-selection abortion of unborn females.
Buried at 19 paragraphs into an A1 Wall Street Journal story on the religious tensions in the Gulf is a reference that appears to imply that religious issues are not part of the “real world.” Accessing the article requires an expensive log-in (which I don’t have — I am relying on a dead-pulp version), but props to Rod Dreher of Beliefnet’s Crunchy Con and the The Dallas Morning News for catching it Monday and calling us out for missing it.
What if you picked up your morning newspaper and discovered that one of the nation’s veteran religion-beat specialists was beginning a massive four-part series on sexism and women’s rights in India. Would this surprise you?
We tend to look at mainstream media religion reporters rather than mainstream media religion columnists, but there’s a new religion column in the San Francisco Chronicle that’s worth a look. David Ian Miller writes the column and he came to religion coverage quite recently, after covering city hall, personal finances and technology news. He decided to interview one person each week about their religion.
The hype machine for James Cameron‘s documentary The Lost Tomb of Christ has hit Anna Nicole Smith levels of ridiculousness.
Over the past quarter century or so, I have written my share of stories and columns about traditional Catholics who yearn for the return of the Tridentine Mass.
Associated Press reporters Jennifer Dobner and Glen Johnson put together a doozy of a story that ran Saturday on the Mitt Romney family tree. The hook is the fact that several of his ancestors were married multiple times. At the same time. Of course, the supporters of the former Massachusetts governor are quick to note that of the three leading candidates, Romney is the only one to be married once:
The story is ugly and lurid, packed with the kinds of details that are almost impossible to include in mainstream news coverage.
Amazing Grace, an overdue tribute to British abolitionist William Wilberforce, opens nationwide today. The film is well worth seeing, particularly if you’re unfamiliar with the Wilberforce story. Like with almost every movie I see, I had some artistic quibbles with it. (And I’m not snooty: I’m hoping to see Reno 911 tonight.) But most surprising to me was how little religion was included in a movie about someone so religiously influenced. Charlotte Allen, who has the same problem, reviewed the film for The Wall Street Journal:
