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I wrote yesterday about the six storylines of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States. In their stories this morning, the big dailies added a seventh storyline: the Pope’s Reaction to the Sex-Abuse Scandal.
Here’s the text of President Bush’s speech at the White House. Then, here’s the pope’s statement at the White House.
One of our goals here at GetReligion is to find stories in mainstream journalism that are “haunted” by religion ghosts, which we define as a clear religious element or theme that the reporters and editors either didn’t notice or simply ignored.
Tmatt wrote about two storylines in the press so far about the pope’s visit. Daniel added a third. And in their spirit, I will add three more angles.
A good newspaper editorial page will be staffed by reporters with a drive toward breaking news. Most, it seems, just write bland, predictable opinion pieces in response to the news of the day. So I’m not opposed to seeing a columnist break some news on her beat. I think it can promote some healthy competition with the regular newswriters.
If you stop and think about the degree to which mainstream journalists view life through a political lens, then it is absolutely stunning that the feisty folks over at the Politico seem to have the following story to themselves — for a few hours.
As the click ticks down to papalmania, we have reached the point where it is impossible to follow all of the coverage, let alone offer some commentary on it. Perhaps, in the comments pages, we could start a list of the best blogs to watch during the next few days. Please pitch in.
