Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Our friends at Episcopal Café may be about the only media people to place Walter Cronkite’s faith so high in a story, but there it is, right in the headline: “Walter Cronkite, newsanchor & Episcopalian, dies at 92.”
Which is more newsworthy? Well, the answer very much depends on the lens journalists are using to cover the nomination of Dr. Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health. President Barack Obama’s nomination of the renowned geneticist and public Christian hasn’t flooded the news pages — but it is making waves on the opinion pages and the blogosphere.
Because we’re seeing so many stories about bioethics, I’ve been trying to learn a bit more the field of thought. I recently read G.K. Chesterton’s “Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State.” It’s a collection of essays written in the 1920s at the height of the eugenics movement. One of the things I found so interesting about the book is that if it were read in the 1920s, one would think that Chesterton was fighting a lonely and losing battle. But a few more decades of eugenics — punctuated by the Nazi embrace, of course — and people began questioning and rejecting it.
At GetReligion we must often acknowledge how difficult it is for reporters to tell complex stories in shrinking news spaces — which makes it so important to praise reporters who do an exceptional job.
Having spent the past two years almost exclusively reporting on the American Jewish community, it’s easy to forget how foreign some parts of traditional Jewish life are to most Americans. That’s why I could really appreciate this story from the Associated Press that does an excellent job of educating readers while informing them about a development in Big Sky country:
Any longtime reader of GetReligion knows that the gang here likes Q&A interviews, especially when they allow newsmakers to dig deeper into complex topics and tell their own stories in their own words. I think this journalistic tool is especially valuable on the religion beat — which is so rich in history, symbolism and doctrine.
I’ll admit right up front that my eyebrows arched way up when I saw that my local newspaper — that would be the Baltimore Sun — had published an A1 news feature on efforts by the Southern Baptist Convention to plant a circle of new churches in and around this unique urban environment that some call Charm City.
As you may have noticed, we don’t ignore hot button topics, even when they involve sex, sexuality and the sex lives of politicians. There are many places where sex and religion coverage intersect. One of those places is in the arena of sex and values education — a topic which traditionally was the province of families and religious communities.
It’s been weeks since I first read Caitlin Flanagan’s cover story for Time magazine titled “Is There Hope for the American Marriage?” The article was incredibly provocative and interesting.
