Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Trying to figure out how and why Senator John McCain triumphed over his competitors Saturday in the South Carolina primary is like trying to figure out why professional football teams have success in the playoffs. In other words, the calculus is not easy, but there are factors worth discussing.
Los Angeles Times reporter K. Connie Kang had another interesting story on the Godbeat or, in this case, the gods beat. Yes, the Episcopalians are involved.
Last month CNN reporter Gary Tuchman had a great story about a prayer campaign called Light the Highway. The leaders of the campaign believe that Interstate 35 was possibly prophesied about in Isaiah 35‘s mention of a “holy highway.” Seeing the prayer group in action was impressive as they all fervently shouted out prayers over each other while walking around near I-35 in Dallas.
Every now and then, I read a really interesting story and I think to myself, “You know, the minute someone covers that story in the New York Times or it shows up on National Public Radio, then all heckfire is going to break loose.”
I love the way the Wall Street Journal covers religion. Rather than focus on political-religious stories as so many other media outlets do, the Journal frequently looks at stories about actual religious life. Many readers sent along Alexandra Alter’s fascinating analysis of church discipline:
I was wondering what it would take to get some more mainstream media coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s United Church of Christ pastor. Wright has been mentioned in quite a few opinion columns and tabloid publications recently for his race-based preaching and teaching. But mainstream media coverage has been lacking. So it was nice to see an article by the Baltimore Sun‘s Michael Hill about Wright and the attention he’s been receiving:
When I was growing up, two of my favorite books were In Cold Blood and Dead Man Walking. Both exposed the desolation, inhumanity, and cruelty of capital punishment — and both were hugely popular. But did either of them make the death penalty less popular? The data is not encouraging.
For being on page A1 in The Washington Post, the article earlier this week on a high school athlete disqualified from a track meet for wearing clothing intended to be modest for religious reasons is missing a few things. Fortunately, we have the Internet, and the captions on the online photo gallery fill in a few details that were lacking from the story.
