Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Several years ago, I wrote a Scripps Howard News Service column about one of the more obscure disputes linked to the death, or death by starvation, of Terri Schiavo — whether or not her body should be cremated, against strong opposition of her devout Roman Catholic family.
While we all watch the Divine Ms. MZ keep jumping into a war zone with her siege of posts defending the American model of the press, please allow me to post a crucial document linked to this debate.
Yesterday I criticized a Los Angeles Times story on same-sex marriage. While the post received tons of comments, very few — very few — managed to stay on topic to the purpose of this blog. Some posters used the comment thread as a forum to argue against same-sex marriage. Many others resorted to calling supporters of traditional marriage bigots.
If I had to teach a child the concept of natural law, I would tell him or her to play Dungeons & Dragons.
You know, I laughed out loud when I popped open the first email asking me what I thought of this story. Then I did what any news junkie would do in this day and age. I slapped a silly headline on it and sent it to some of my friends.
I criticized an Associated Press story yesterday for failing Journalism 101. Another AP story, about nonreligious camp, does not suffer from this problem.
Last week I criticized a Los Angeles Times story for spinning the results of a poll to make it seem like opposition to same-sex marriage wasn’t significant. Though supporters of traditional marriage had a 19-point margin of victory over those who want to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions, the Times referred to that margin as slim, narrow, “a bit” of a bare majority.
Religion news should be treated generally like any other news found in a community’s newspaper. News about religious issues is not the place for preaching, lecturing, or giving advice. Most news stories avoid using the first person. That is standard news journalism.
The Associated Press wrote an interesting man-bites-dog story about religious conflict in Israel. According to the wire service, Orthodox Jews burned hundreds of copies of the New Testament:
