Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Here’s a hard-news story that I have been interested in, ever since some of the details of President Barack Obama’s stimulus and tax plan began to surface. Thus, I have been watching for mainstream coverage of the topic.
All week, I had people asking what I thought about THAT story, you know, the Politico piece about the top-secret online congregation of liberal journalists that has been helping keep the left on message for the past two years.
National Public Radio’s ombudsman reports on a controversy over its March 5 package on same-sex marriage. On that day (the day that the California Supreme Court heard arguments about rescinding the Prop. 8 vote) Morning Edition ran a 4.5-minute interview with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, one of the more prominent civic leaders in support of same-sex marriage. They balanced that story out with a piece on the targeting of Prop. 8 supporters.
The area of Pennsylvania where I live has a Quaker history which goes back at least three centuries. One of the legacies of that tradition is the “self-uniting” marriage license — for those who decide to get married with witnesses, but without an officiant.
Death and dying are intricately tied to the subjects of God, religion and faith. The Los Angeles Times made this clear earlier this week in its detailed look at why some statistics show that cancer patients deemed terminally ill requested intensive, but useless medical treatment, such as breathing machines, at a much higher rate if their faith was a significant factor in the their medical decision.
I wish the mainstream media would cover more denominational news. Or, should I say, more denominational but non-Episcopalian news. I also wish we’d see more balanced coverage of disagreements related to homosexuality.
I know, it’s hard to read the following story and not get mad about the central image of a pastor spanking a 12-year-old girl with a piece of wooden crown molding, with the permission of her parents, because these adults in her life doubted her claims that she had been sexually molested.
Trust me, I realize that what I am about to write falls into the “there he goes again, saying the same old things” category. I wish that wasn’t the case, but I know that it is.
In the April issue of The Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan has written an informative and sometimes chilling profile of Narendra Modi, chief minister of the northwestern state of Gujarat. Modi is important because of his increasing influence within the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and allegations that he helped encourage Hindu riots against Muslims in 2002.
