Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
A significant news morsel buried in the middle of a ho-hum article about a meeting with President Bush in the Savannah Morning News deserves attention. In an interview with author Bruce Feiler, Larry Peterson went with the metro news headline stating that local boy makes good and meets with leader of the free world.
If you type the word “evangelicals” into Google Images, the art attached to the top of this post is the very first thing that turns up. This tells us quite a bit about how most Americans now define the vague word “evangelical.”
The entire Mid-Atlantic region is in a terrible drought right now, although we got a few showers this weekend. It was most strange to visit Central Texas a week ago and see the fields a deep, rich green, while Maryland looks parched and dry.
Michael Kress is the assistant managing editor at Beliefnet and a freelance religion reporter. I’ve come across a few of his articles recently as he’s published in Slate, The Dallas Morning News and other sites.
One of the greatest challenges that journalists face, in my humble opinion, is knowing how to handle a strong, newsworthy statement of fact by a person of authority that simply cannot be verified as accurate.
“Stories like this annoy me,” a Lutheran pastor wrote when he notified us of the following Chicago Sun-Times piece. Written by veteran religion reporter Susan Hogan/Albach, it’s about how the Metropolitan Chicago bishop-elect of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America views his denomination’s celibacy requirement for gay and lesbian clergy. The Lutheran clergy and GetReligion reader is a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which does not ordain gay clergy. Though both Lutheran groups are large (and I’m a member of the LCMS), only the larger ELCA is mentioned in the story.
ABC News’ 20/20 messed up big time. In a March episode the show showed a video clip of the Rev. Frederick K.C. Price, founder of the Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles, saying that he lives in a 25-room mansion and owns a $6 million yacht, a private jet, a helicopter and seven luxury cars. The problem for ABC News is that Price wasn’t stating facts about himself. It was a hypothetical.
The newspaper that lands in my front yard — that would be the Baltimore Sun — has just completed a major overhaul of its online edition. Click here if you want to see its guide to this project.
