Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The papal visit is over, which means that we have only one major media ritual left to survive — a final wave of “what it all meant” features. It’s hard not to note that these stories will serve as logical bookends to those “what his visit will mean” features that ran just over a week ago. Please know that I am not knocking these journalistic rites. After all, I plan to write a wrap-up column myself, this week.
While papal coverage dominated religion news last week, the saga involving the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints continued. I’m still digging through all the recent updates and analyses, but I wonder what readers think of this headline:
So Pope Benedict XVI moved on up the coast to New York and, as you would imagine, the newspaper of record in those parts is packed with coverage today. We could do an entire day or two on this here blog simply trying to scan all of that. But did I miss any editorials or op-eds today?
Pope Benedict XVI may be in his 80s, but he keeps a schedule that is tiring just to observe. There have been so many appointments, so many meetings, so many worship services. One of the significant events was a prayer service with representatives from other Christian church bodies. And as dramatic as people may think his Regensburg speech was, his comments at St. Joseph’s in Yorkville gave the gathered much to chew on.
I get the sense that the news reporters in the heartland are viewing the pope’s visit as less significant than reporters on the East Coast. An obvious reason for this is that the pope’s schedule doesn’t take him far from New York City or Washington, D.C. For example, The Indianapolis Star buried its only story on the pope a couple of days ago — from the Associated Press — on its back page.
And on the fourth day of coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit, reporters gave their readers accurate and insightful characterizations and interesting quotes. Now if only they would give their readers a bit more context.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s ace religion reporter Ann Rodgers had an innovative angle on the pope’s address to U.S. bishops. Whereas most people focused on Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about sexual abuse or immigration, Rodgers focused on his comments about the life of the church:
Actually, there isn’t a ghost in the Barack Obama “Bittergate” fuss. The religion element has been right there front and center (or to the left of center) all along.
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter provided a GetReligion-style service by performing, as he said, “rumor control,” in the hope that inaccurate or overblown material can be put in its proper context before it spins out of control.
