Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Whenever I see Bruce Nolan’s byline, I think of Bruce Almighty, thanks to a post Bobby wrote back in June. On screen, Jim Carrey’s character Bruce Nolan acts as a television reporter who plays God for a bit.
We’ve seen quite a bit of coverage of the Cordoba mosque project near ground zero. Most in-depth questioning or investigative journalism seems focused on opponents of the mosque project. Most discussions of the backers of the project assert that they are “moderate.” But what is a moderate Muslim? What does the phrase “moderate” mean, much less imply? And this is putting aside the fact that there’s plenty of information out there about Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf that makes one wonder what the modifier “moderate” means in his case any way.
Excuse me if I head deep into the tmatt guilt folder and make a point or two about a story that I’ve been mulling over for more than a week.
It’s not uncommon to hear people claim that all religions are roughly the same when it comes to acts of violence. And when folks make this claim in the context of terrorism in the United States, it’s not uncommon that they will cite Timothy McVeigh as an example of a “Christian” terrorist.
I’ve basically lived in every corner or Southern California not within the 789 square miles that constitute Orange County. (Though for a time in college I had developed enough of a social web around Newport Beach that my roommates joked that I had attended Newport Harbor High School with them.) But even I find this New York Times headline to be a bit off:
If you haven’t heard yet, President Obama will make a speech from the Oval Office to announce the end of combat operations in Iraq. To evaluate the quality of conditions in Iraq, reporters often look at factors like violence, education, elections, and social services.
One of the hardest things to explain to people who have never worked in a real newsroom is why some events are news at one moment in time and in one location, but a similar story is not news at some other time in some other location.
I’ve mumbled to myself how interesting it is that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, not known for his strong defense of property rights, has been so good on the issue when it comes to the proposed Cordoba mosque project. This Wall Street Journal story attempts to show a similar discrepancy on Bloomberg’s religious views. I think it fails because it confuses personal religious views with civic duty. Here’s how it begins:
