Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Let me be frank with you: I do not know quite what to make of a recent story in The Oklahoman about a bitter fight in a local Catholic church about — brace yourself — an allegedly obscene crucifix.
Whenever I speak at Christian colleges and universities, I always find flocks of students who, when I ask them to name their dream full-time jobs, stress that they want to cover topics linked to entertainment, not hard news.
In a story involving 30-plus reporters around the world, The Associated Press produced what it billed as a major scoop. The headline on the Yahoo! version declared:
We’ve taken issue with some of the coverage of serious issues related to the Vatican recently. That’s a bit of an understatement.
Your GetReligionistas, as you know, rarely comment on editorials, especially those of the op-ed variety that offer the point of view of one scribe with an attitude. However, official editorials that express the beliefs of the newspaper’s editorial board often, in my humble opinion, offer insights into the thinking of newsroom professionals when it comes to complex and controversial topics in the news.
GetReligion doesn’t usually deal with columns, but sometimes a columnist will cover (or attempt to cover) something newsworthy.
If I never had to read another story about the Westboro Baptist Church and its “staged-for-media hatefests” — as Tmatt so aptly described the congregation’s protests last month — I just might make my own sign. “Thank God for small blessings,” it would read. Or something like that.
I was reading this CBS/Associated Press story about a missing 11-year-old girl from central Florida being found alive, four days after she disappeared in swamplands near her home. And there was religion all over the place. People were talking about miracles. The guy who found her went to the same church as her parents. But we never learn what church it is. It’s just weird.
As you would expect, the editors and reporters at the Los Angeles Times have been trying to do some heavy lifting following the announcement that Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio would soon be arriving in the City of Angels.
