Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
But when you cruise through an entire year of GetReligion posts, it really is amazing how much can happen in a year. There’s just so much stuff in this here weblog (and most of it still “works,” even though flaws in the cyberspace concept of a “permalink” creates some holes).
Behold this observation, offered in the comments pages the other day in the wake of this weblog’s 4000th post:
A fire caused extensive damage to the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago this morning. There’s a really long, interesting and thorough article about the blaze and its repercussions over at Chicago Breaking News, which is a composite site for WGN, the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets:
For our fifth anniversary, we’re picking our top five posts from the last year. So I’ve reviewed all of my posts, a fruitful exercise that reminds me I’m still partial to stories about doctrine, the liturgical calendar and unlikely stories of how faith changes religious adherents. Even though these are my favorite topics to write about, they rarely elicit as much feedback as political posts. I normally dislike writing about politics but this last year was a huge exception.
In 1989 ABC became the first major American TV network to hire a full-time religion correspondent, and that worthy experiment did not spread far — except for CNN’s hiring of Delia Gallagher and then John Allen Jr. as Vatican correspondents. Even so, religion makes cameo appearances in certain corners of network TV, such as ABC’s Nightline, which runs a regular feature called Faith Matters.
It seems like just a few months ago that I was compiling my list of top stories from the previous year. Regardless of how quickly I would like to see time fly by, what follows is my summary from the past year and a celebration of this blog’s five years in existence.
Not just a religiously rich, important and awesome movie, Groundhog Day is also a great secular holy day. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, meaning six more weeks of winter. Slate took the occasion of running a previously published piece on the origins and meaning of the day, written by Timothy Noah.
I have always been fascinated with intentional religious communities and the New York Times ran a news feature on one the other day that was very well done — with one serious gap.
