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I’m sorry. I try not to pick on any reporters, especially one who is a former Bruin and is fighting the good fight on one of the more besieged religion beats in the country. But I have to ring this bell again.
After the 2004 election, the media freakout included claims that Christian conservatives were trying to turn the country into a theocracy or something. But liberal lions such as Sen. Ted Kennedy wondered whether Democrats could do a better job of reaching out to religious voters. And thus began key years of hard and effective work by Democrats. Data gathered during the 2006 and 2008 election showed that Democrats made tremendous gains in appealing to religious voters.
Years ago, the features editors at The Oklahoman decided they wanted a fresh take on “The Nutcracker.” So they asked someone who had never gone to the ballet to attend and write a review of the holiday classic. That someone — me — wrote a generally positive review filled with witty observations that I am certain would have merited a scathing review on GetBallet.org (if such a site existed).
First the Los Angeles Times nonchalantly reported the news that Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the largest Catholic community in the nation, would not be asked by the pope to stay on, as is common, after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75. In a glorified news brief, no less.
Every now and then I get email from regular GetReligion readers protesting the fact that we — well, me in particular — keep writing about the same subjects too much. In other words, we complain about some of the same errors in the mainstream press over and over and over (think Anglican Timeline Disease).
GetReligion contributor Sarah Pulliam used to be my favorite Wheaton College graduate. My new favorite graduate is horror film director Wes Craven. I had no idea he’d gone to the school until I read this Associated Press story about journalist Ann Curry’s embarrassing mistake giving a commencement address last weekend:
About a year ago, during a book tour to promote “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion,” I had a chance to take part in a forum for young journalists at a media institute in Bangalore, India. As you would expect, the topic for the day was improving mainstream media coverage of religion.
The Tennessean published a pretty good article from Bob Smietana over the weekend that dealt with a Muslim groups defeated mosque-permit application. The article discusses familiar themes of NIMBYism and is laced with Islamophobic sentiments from the most vocal opponents of the project:
