Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
One of the big questions that religion writers discuss when they are in private and speak freely is this one: Are we supposed to challenge people when they claim that they have had some kind of unique, supernatural spiritual experience? Do we, somehow, try to dig into the details and challenge this kind of account?
Since I love analyzing media coverage of the liturgical calendar, there is no way I could let this story from The Telegraph go without comment. Apparently, some Dutch Catholics are trying to encourage folks to embrace the penitential season of Lent. That’s the good news:
If you are following the events in Turkey, you may be having trouble following all of the religious labels. Again.
Kavita Kumar of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote about a Catholic college’s decision to not stage a production of “The Vagina Monologues” on campus. Her story claimed that officials at St. Louis University canceled the controversial play for various reasons:
Sometimes television news pieces are just bad. They are often so bad that they are not even worth pointing out. You just dismiss them and hope that no one else saw that illogical stream of presumptions, insinuations and generalizations you just suffered through.
Margaret Ramirez of the Chicago Tribune wrote a curious and rather representative story about Barack Obama’s favorite pastor. It showed readers that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who retired, had expanded his United Church of Christ congregation dramatically. But her article failed to explain why his pastorate succeeded.
On Friday, we looked at some of the media coverage of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ suggestion that some aspects of sharia should be formally introduced in England. On Monday, we looked at some of the responses Williams’ speech has engendered.
Here’s a quick follow-up note on that post I offered about the disputed quotes between former President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Ed Young of the giant Second Baptist Church in Houston.
Any news story that is reliant on statements from public interest groups is bound to have some problems. News stories involving the appointment of federal judges with lifetime tenure are often Exhibit A, along with nearly any other story involving a controversial person being considered for a lifetime job.
