Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
This may be turning into a “theme week” for me here at GetReligion. Call it the “dog that didn’t bark” week. Or maybe I need to run that lighthouse joke — again. Remember that one?
Not that anyone should be surprised, but a portion of the national community that makes up Notre Dame’s supporters, alumni, students and the parents of students, are none too thrilled with the fact that President Obama will be speaking at the institution’s graduation this spring and receiving an honorary degree. Their problem is that Obama’s official policies directly contradict Catholic teaching on the subject of the sanctity of human life.
Veteran reporter Robin Wright of The Washington Post has written a sprightly and encouraging article for Time about Muslims around the world who “do not want either an Iranian-style theocracy or a Western-style democracy.” Instead, “They want a blend, with clerics playing an advisory role in societies, not ruling them.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured an interesting package yesterday about prison inmates who are exonerated years after their convictions.
I’ll ‘fess up, OK? I confess that I have been paying a bit of attention to the latest “What in the ^#@* has gone wrong with England story?” That would be the train wreck of coverage about young master Alfie Patten, the baby-faced (this word is included in almost every UK story) 13-year-old who has just become his land’s most famous baby father.
Longtime GetReligion presence danr will receive the coveted coffee mug that we promised to the person who posted the 50,000th comment on our blog. Congratulations, dan! You will of course find that coffee, tea or any other beverage tastes just a bit more heavenly in this vessel.
As I type this, there are 49,980 comments attached to the 4,157 posts spread out over the five-plus years of life here at GetReligion.
How do you explain the religious complexities of a foreign culture not only to those who have a pretty deep understanding already, but to your most ignorant reader? And do various commonly used terms, like “religious right” and “religious left” mean the same thing “over there” (in this case, Israel) as they do over here? Not that we neccessarily even agree on what they mean over here.
Because politics is religion to many reporters, far too many religion stories are seen through that prism. If you want coverage and you’re not embroiled in some hot-button issue or campaigning for some government action one way or another, you’re probably not going to get any.
