Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Following the murder of prominent late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, gunned down in the foyer of his church, many mainstream media outlets have run articles about the controversial practice of late-term abortions and the doctors who perform them. This is a good thing. On a public policy issue as heated as late-term abortion, it’s good to provide readers with more information about the practice and who is involved.
President Obama’s Cairo speech seemed to have a very broad, some would say impossible agenda. First off, to make it evident how he sees the political realities on the ground — and give some hint of his priorities. Second, to reach the broadest possible spectrum of believers with his call for religious liberty and tolerance. Third, of course, and the one that got top billing, to reach out particularly to Muslims around the world. And I’m sure there are some others that I’ve forgotten to mention.
One certainty in coverage of George Till’s murder has been Randall Terry’s consistent reference to Tiller as a mass murderer. Terry repeated that message again Wednesday as part of a summer lecture series sponsored by The Rutherford Institute.
In his attempts to build bridges on abortion, President Barack Obama has been able to draw favorable coverage by changing the words he uses to talk about the issue, while only hinting at minor policy changes that do not address core issues linked to any restrictions on abortion. Now, many mainstream journalists are now drawing parallels between the president’s approach on abortion with his historic Cairo University speech on tensions between America, Israel and the Arab world.
Last week, I went to Kiev to speak to a group of Ukrainian journalists — both secular and religious — about the challenges of covering religion news in mainstream press. My chapter in the Oxford Centre book, “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion,” had been translated into Ukrainian and it was a great chance to get some feedback from scribes in a very different context — a post-Soviet culture.
Wednesday Mollie looked at a story from CNN.com about an odd encounter between a shop-keeper and a would-be robber. It wasn’t clear exactly what, if anything, actually happened during the meeting.
A couple of days ago, President Barack Obama conducted a few interviews in anticipation of his upcoming speech to Muslims. In one of the interviews, he made a statement about the religious make-up of the United States of America. Here’s how the New York Times wrote it up:
The latest issue of The New Yorker includes an 11-page comic strip by R. Crumb that depicts the accounts of the Creation and the Fall from the first three chapters of Genesis. (The feature is an excerpt from the forthcoming The Book of Genesis: Illustrated by R. Crumb.) The online version requires a subscription, and that’s too bad.
One of the best things about making a 9-hour flight on an airliner is that it gives you enough time to read an issue of Atlantic Monthly. Thus, on the way to Kiev, I finally got to read the stunning “What Makes Us Happy?” cover story by Joshua Wolf Shenk.
