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It’s one thing to rip a routine or bad story. It’s another to criticize an excellent story with one flaw. The exercise can seem, and perhaps often is, pedantic. So if the criticism is to be convincing, it better be valid.
I have no idea if there is a religion ghost somewhere in the sad story of Ashley Youmans Rae Maika DiPietro Alexandra Dupre — the 22-year-old “escort” better known as “Kristen” in the icky story of Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York.
The carving of India and the subcontinent into tense, clashing nations is, literally, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century that hardly anyone in America knows about. It was a nightmare so hellish that some of its images and stories are simply not mentioned. The denial is that deep.
Good reporting generally involves some time, coordination and good footwork. Forget secret meetings in Washington, D.C., parking garages. Some of the best stories sit underneath reporter’s noses. A little creativity and thinking outside the box can reveal an aspect of a community that everyone appreciates regardless of which side of the issue they fall.
Yesterday I poked fun at the shoddy journalism that marked coverage of the Vatican’s supposed reissue of seven deadly sins. Most of the papers responsible for the bad reporting were British. Which, considering the different standards and approach of the British media, isn’t the most surprising thing in the world.
As a rule, your GetReligionistas are fond of the regular Belief Watch column that appears in the crowded front pages of Newsweek. But I have a bone to pick with the recent mini-feature that ran with the headline, “Stop Your Sobbing — Now.”
OK, about that Eliot Spitzer business. There have been public calls for the New York governor to step down or face impeachment. So far, he has not announced an exit, stage left, but this is a developing news story. It’s possible that by the time you read this, New York Lieutenant Governor David Paterson will be in charge.
Stephanie Simon had a fine Column One feature the other day in the Los Angeles Times about a battle that is brewing — avoiding this pun is impossible — down in Alabama between the Southern Baptists and the beer drinkers who view home-based microbrewing as a kind of sacrament. You gotta love the dateline, too — Harvest, Ala. — and the lede that takes us into the catacombs of some true beer believers.
For Christians who observe the liturgical calendar, the pre-Easter, 40-day penitential season of Lent is upon us. In Western Christianity, Lent began on Ash Wednesday — February 6 this year. In the East, Lent began yesterday.
