Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Sunday’s New York Times profile of filmmaker Michael Moore, whose “Capitalism: A Love Story” opens nationwide Oct. 2, asked readers to view Moore as a modern-day embodiment of Charlie Chaplin:
I don’t exactly know how I ended up on the Arizona Republic‘s celebrity page but check out this important update on Jennifer Aniston:
It died down a bit in recent years but remember the so-called War on Christmas? That’s where various elements in the culture try to secularize or otherwise diminish the sacredness of the season leading up to Christmas. I myself like to talk of the War on Advent (the actual season that precedes Christmas Day) as well as the wars on various other liturgical seasons and festivals. And what about the Jewish liturgical calendar? How much do we read in the mainstream media about the meaning and significance of Jewish holy days?
Here is another look into the church-state future, another case of a classic liberal value from the past clashing with a powerful liberal value from the modern world.
I still remember my wife’s remark when I told her I was going to the Reagan Library for the annual banquet hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition:
John T. Elson died on Sept. 7. John who, you ask? The New York Times’ obit explains that Elson was the Time religion editor who wrote the magazine’s famous 1966 cover story asking: “Is God dead?”
I’m saving the best (Got News?) for last. But first, let’s cover culture war news from the Values Voter Summit held in D.C. And right off the bat I wanna say (yeah, that’s how we talk in Philly — you gotta problem with that?) that I’m ambivalent about any journalist who uses that term as a descriptor rather than the title of the Family Research Values conference. The term implies that conservative activists are the only ones with values, or that those on the left are value-free, or that voters who fell into the middle of the spectrum don’t take their values to the voting booth. In general, the reporters below tend to be clear that this is a term of choice, not of reality.
As the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway has been demonstrating, the mainstream press has shown quite a bit of interest in the religious roots of the anti-ACORN video reporter Hannah Giles and, in particular, the social and political views of her minister father and, to a lesser degree by inference, their home Clash Church.
A couple of days ago I wrote about Darryl Fears’ snarky Washington Post story about the independent journalists who have targeted community organizing group ACORN. Their videos show employees of ACORN advising how to set up a brothel with underage girls (who are sex-trafficked!) in the most tax-friendly way. It’s not much of a religion story but Fears has been trying to make it one. And with the reticence that much of the mainstream media has had in covering the story, perhaps it’s good that the Post is covering it at all.
