Reporters spent Monday covering much-needed ground in the tragic killings at the Youth With a Mission campus and New Life Church in Colorado. It turns out that there are even more religious angles. I’ve been really impressed with all of the Colorado papers and television stations, and there’s way too much to highlight here, but let’s look at the two newest angles. The first is information on what may have motivated the gunman, Matthew Murray, as described by the local ABC affiliate:
About the Post's bizarre Obama story
I have mixed feelings about ombudsmen, but the latest effort by The Washington Post‘s Deborah Howell makes me think again about their usefulness. Howell dealt with the story the Post did a couple of weeks ago about the baseless rumors surrounding the Barack Obama presidential campaign that he is a closet Muslim. Even Post opinion cartoonist Tom Toles had a useful opinion on the piece.
Making sense of senseless shootings
A missionary center and a church were the scenes of fatal shootings yesterday in my native state of Colorado. It’s always hard to write good copy following chaotic events, and I noticed there were some inconsistencies in coverage such as fluctuating totals for those wounded and killed. This post will make a few random observations about the coverage.
J.K. Rowling, minus her soul
Entertainment Weekly is an amazing magazine. I have been reading the magazine since day one and I remember thinking to myself back then, “It takes real talent and commitment to achieve such a consistently ironic, world-weary tone in your very first issue.”
Betrayed with a translation
Readers of GetReligion are familiar with that mainstream media holiday tradition of releasing news stories that are supposed to shake the foundations of Christianity. Easters over the last few years have featured stories that Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water), that he wasn’t crucified in the manner in which people think, that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera, not Joseph, and that Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much as pass out after being doped up.
Evangelicals behind Huckabee's rise?
What accounts for Mike Huckabee’s surge in the polls? The Washington Post thinks it knows: he’s winning over evangelicals. This is, of course, what everyone is saying right now.
Oh, those warring Episcopals
There is no way to read all of the coverage of today’s vote, by the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno in central California, to cut ties to the U.S. Episcopal Church.
Stars align for a June bride
Two of the most interesting stories that readers sent along this week didn’t come from mainstream newspapers. The first was reported by The Living Church News Service, which covers Anglican news:
Do reporters skip Mitt's faith now?
A brief unscientific survey of Utah newspapers’ coverage of Mitt Romney’s speech on Thursday shows that reporters were quite aware that Romney hardly delved into his church’s teachings.
