Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi had a solid story about a new PBS ban on religious programming. Basically the board decided to forbid member stations from airing new religious programs but permitted those that already carry “sectarian” shows to continue to do so. It was a compromise from a proposed ban on all religious programming such as local church services or religious lectures.
I don’t know about you, but I really miss reading a good, newsy, weekly magazine. Thus, while I was on the road (that long trek, literally, around the world last week to speak in Manila, Bangalore and New Delhi) I really enjoyed getting to dig into a small stack of international editions of Time.
The American Civil Liberties Union recently released a report arguing that the fight against terrorism has unduly interfered with Muslims’ religious freedom and hampered the work of Muslim charities. The report argues that U.S. statutes against funding of terrorist organizations are too broad and unfairly enforced. This has made it hard for Muslims to fulfill zakat, one of their religious obligations. Zakat is the giving of a small percentage of wealth (roughly 2.5%) as charity.
As I read the story from the Citizen-Times.com website, I tried to remember a few basics about what it’s like to write for a paper in a smaller market. Local papers (as in Asheville, North Carolina) might not have a full-time religion reporter. They often don’t have space for longer articles, thus making it possible for details to get lost. And they may assume that their local readers know about churches and institutions that those of us surfing from “abroad” might not know.
Talk about a byline and a dateline that raised some eyebrows! The online folks at New York Magazine asked the obvious question in this headline: “Why Is Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in Iran?”
Elizabeth already discussed Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s five-part series on the science of spirituality. That ran on National Public Radio where she’s a reporter. The series came out of a book Hagerty wrote called Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality.
Stories about religous and moral controversies are about polity and denominations, protests and politics — but they are also, and mostly, about people. When a writer cares enough to spend time getting to know the people behind the positions, then it is possible (or more possible) for the journalist to let the story unspool invitingly without jumping in there with the exclamation points and scare quotes.
Sometimes it’s surprising how little institutional memory the mainstream media has. Take this story from the New York Times, explaining a debate over a building plan by a Muslim school in Northern Virginia. Reporter Theo Emery explains that Islamic Saudi Academy officials in Fairfax, Virginia, are seeking permission to erect a new classroom building and move hundreds of students from another campus. But some neighbors are opposed because of congestion. Other neighbors have a different basis of opposition altogether:
Kim Janssen of the Chicago Tribune did a generally solid job with a delicate topic on Friday, telling the story of a woman who blogged about having a baby with Trisomy 13, then losing the baby to death soon afterward. This pregnancy, although fictional, drew on what blogger Beccah Beushausen said was her previous loss of a baby under similar circumstances.
