Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
From a basketball and sports perspective, this lengthy profile in The Los Angeles Times headlined “Jewish coach, black players forged lasting bond” is a model for excellence in sports journalism. Unfortunately, the obvious religious element of the story — which the editors decided for one reason or another deserved top billing — gets little more than a few mentions in the article which runs close to 2,400 words.
Should journalists clean up the language of the people they’re quoting? No, I don’t mean “clean up” like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich might need his language cleaned up.
The big news at Kurt Soller’s Readback blog over at nonNewsweek comes at the very end of his Dec. 10 post.
Ah, December — the month of office parties, hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” in airports and reading incessant Top 10 lists. Time is ahead of the pack this year, rolling out 50 lists, and David Van Biema does the honors on the year’s top religion stories.
Tell me, you dedicated readers of religion news, can you imagine anything worse than seeing the following pairs of words in the same story — “Fred Phelps” and “Christmas wars.”
Earlier this week, rumors began circulating about a major drop in circulation for Newsweek. Some were suggesting a drop from a rate base of 2.6 million to 1 million. A rate base, by the way, is the circulation you guarantee to advertisers.
The ancient and formerly sizable religion of Zoroastrianism is facing dwindling numbers. Followers of the prophet Zarathustra — and devotees of the divine being Ahura Mazda — are worried about the survival of their Persian religion.
As you may know, this here weblog has been on the move the past 24 hours from one server universe to another. So, while your GetReligionistas wrestle with all of the new bells and whistles in our updated software, let me pass on some good news from the religion-writer hereafter.
