Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
There are times when it seems as if the World Wide Web has always been around, like a public utility. But if you look at cyberspace in terms of journalism history, we are still very early in the transition to whatever the heckfire is going to happen next.
For months, I criticized the print press for not covering the Democratic presidential candidates’ outreach to religious Democrats in general and Catholic Democrats specifically. I didn’t get it. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had religious outreach directors. Yet until the Pennsylvania primary in April, reporters avoided writing about their efforts.
Cartoons are certainly not news items in the traditional sense of a news article or broadcast, but as we all know, cartoons can certainly make news. See to the right (or click on this link) to get an idea of what I am talking about.
With the mainstream media’s obsession with Gov. Sarah Palin, they haven’t really had as much time to look at the other candidates in the race. But I wanted to look at a few stories coming out of the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama. The first is a report from the Roanoke Times. The report describes a series of small Democratic rallies with religious themes:
I am genuinely fascinated with the degree to which the choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee has created a firestorm on the religion left and, to some degree, in secular corners of the Democratic Party.
When I was a cub reporter lo many years ago, I was advised to get great quotes. Getting the full context of the story was important; ensuring that the story was accurate and fair was important; but nothing was quite as important as getting great quotes. Great quotes, and only great quotes, made the Story.
Nothing makes you miss the former prevalence of overseas news bureaus like a really fantastic foreign service report. Emily Wax, who has moved from Africa to India, filed a personal but newsy account of the violence ravaging the state of Orissa.
The biggest news measured by volume and my own personal opinion coming out of the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit was the infamous Obama Waffles. The incident is certainly the most memorable.
With so much to criticize around here these last few weeks, I wanted to take a moment to highlight an absolutely wonderful story about a Virginia man who died last week. The man was deeply religious and the Washington Post managed to show that with a beautifully detailed story. Reporter Jonathan Mummolo began his piece as follows:
