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CNN.com published 10 — count ‘em, 10 — articles or video clips yesterday about Bishop Eddie Long. If you don’t know who Long is, then you’re like the almost all Americans were one week ago, before the media blitz began with revelations that four young men at Long’s Atlanta-area megachurch were filing lawsuits claiming the minister molested them.
I have read a lot of Michael Lewis over the years — at least five of his books that I can remember, not to mention countless articles. His real gift as journalist is a knack for pure, unadulterated readability. The fact he’s able to write about esoteric subjects such as baseball statistics and credit default swaps and make them both understandable and wildly popular is no mean feat. Believe me, I’m envious.
Buzz words around the Religion Newswriters Association’s conference in Denver yesterday included “broccoli,” “ice cream” and “puppies” after some discussion about how journalists can get better at developing their precious online audiences.
GetReligion is well into its sixth year and, every now and then, I am reminded how much the writing that I do here has changed me in my work as a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, a task that I’ve been at for about 23 years.
A few years ago, I attended a worship service at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I went so that I could witness the congregation’s interfaith Eucharistic prayer. The sermon text was Mark 7 and the priest told us that it showed how Jesus was xenophobic, racist and sexist.
Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput addressed the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Denver yesterday where he both inspired and challenged. Religion reporters, he said, are not normal. “They are amphibians who live in two worlds and can honor both.”
Once upon a time, there was a Catholic priest in Louisiana named Gilbert Gauthe. As Time magazine wrote:
Have you heard the old joke about the Sunday School teacher trying to convince her students that it was not the Red Sea but the Sea of Reeds that the Israelites crossed? She explains that Moses hadn’t miraculously parted the water to enable the crossing. Rather, the sea was actually very shallow — only a couple of inches or feet deep, in fact. So while God did rescue his people, he didn’t use supernatural means.
