Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Life is like a night in a second-class hotel. It contains hints of beauty and glory with little of the reality. This is more than a paraphrase of a quote from St. Teresa of Avila. It serves as an analogy for the coverage of religion in The Washington Post‘s two-part series about propaganda in the U.S. war against Islamic terrorism.
When one of the country’s most prominent evangelical leaders uses the word “fruitcake” to describe a leading presidential contender’s interpretation of the Constitution, you’re guaranteed to get headlines. You’re not guaranteed to get context.
As I promised in that earlier post, I have kept my eyes open for any additional material about the closed-door meeting in Chicago between Sen. Barack Obama and that group of 40 or so Christian leaders. It seems that much of the gossip about it has moved into more private forums.
The brutality of the flooding in the Midwest is hard to comprehend unless you have seen the devastation personally. News stories about flooding generally include the details of rivers cresting, the sandbagging of levees and flood damage assessments. Occasionally a blurb regarding a church or a community’s call for God’s assistance is mentioned, but only rarely.
In the past, I have criticized stories for lacking sufficient context and detail about religion. Today I will praise a New York Times story for exhibiting those qualities, as well as making a relevant point.
When Time magazine broke the story about the alleged Gloucester High School pregnancy pact, the entire media world erupted. It’s been covered on all the cable news shows, papers nationwide and has even been covered by international media. It’s kind of odd that this story exploded at the same time J.C. Penney’s debuted their new teen sex ad to middle America.
As you may have noticed — if you have taken a turn or two around the WWW in the past 20 hours or so (click here) — those amazingly productive people over at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life have rolled out the second half of their lay-of-the-land study of religion in the United States.
Some religion stories err because the reporter, instead of diving into the topic’s waters, skims along its surface. As a result, a reader comes away thinking he has not learned much. I certainly did not learn much after reading two recent stories about homosexuality in California.
Somewhere out there, a public-relations professional is smiling. Either that, or someone at ESPN reads BusinessWeek online and is a really fast worker.
