Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
One of the reasons why I wish reporters would focus more on religion news that’s apolitical is because when they do, the stories turn out so much better. Take this great piece from Gabe Oppenheim of the Washington Post. The news angle for the story is that a local woman won the top documentary prize at the Student Academy Awards in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. But that’s about the least interesting aspect to the whole story.
Sports reporters are often some of the most closely read journalists in the local newspaper. They are also often the most knowledgeable journalists about the subject they cover. To some people’s surprise, sports journalists must also have an adequate grasp on just about everything else in life, including religion.
Last week we had quite a few readers send us a story that ostensibly had nothing to do with religion. Here’s the Associated Press version:
Somehow I missed the odd reference to some guy named “Bill Graham” in The New York Times article on Obama’s desire to expand the role of religious groups in combating the nation’s social problems. Thankfully, the blog Between Two Worlds picked up the reference:
Marie Antoinette had nothing on the late Leona Helmsley. Antoinette, the Queen of France, famously said that the hungry masses should eat cake. Hemsley, the self-styled queen of hotels and real estate, in her will declined to say that people should get that much.
Please believe me when I say that I understand the frustration that many reporters experience while trying to cover the Anglican Communion wars. I also know that GetReligion is causing some frustration among some reporters with our insistence that reporters keep trying, trying, trying to find language that is accurate and (even harder) neutral at all levels of the conflict — local, regional, national and global.
Man, I missed Stephanie Simon. She’s the superhuman religion reporter who left the Los Angeles Times in April for the Wall Street Journal. These last few months of California-heavy coverage without her ace reporting have been difficult to endure. I missed her so much that I just randomly Googled her name . . . and found a fantastic story that ran last week in the Journal. I have no idea how I missed this huge Page One story with tons of graphics. (If that link does not work, try this reprint from the Denver Post.) It’s vintage Simon — she reports the heck out of her pieces, gives them a compelling angle, and writes beautifully.
A funny thing happened last week after I dashed off a quick post about that omnipresent “eternal life” item in the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
