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Whatever else might be said of the current political climate, there’s no doubt that it’s interesting. No one quite knows what might happen in the coming election but we do know that we’ve seen a pretty dramatic shift from 2008, when Democrats seemed unstoppable. Most of the excitement right now is happening in the Tea Party.
When Helen Thomas said Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine,” I thought her canning was warranted. But there was room for debate about whether her statement that they should go back to “Poland, Germany … and America and everywhere else” was anti-Semitic. Paired with her previous treatment of Israel in the opinioneering she did for UPI, I argued the statement was. But, again, room for debate.
Week after week, your GetReligionistas receive mail from people who genuinely distrust or dislike America’s mainstream media.
Several of you felt passionately about Archbishop Charles Chaput’s boycott on the New York Times and jumped into a lively discussion about expectations between religion reporters and religious leaders. Then we discussed the various challenges for reporters with online media and how reporters balance puppy stories with broccoli stories. Guess what: I discuss these juicy topics on our third GetReligion podcast.
One of my favorite religion stories this week was this New York Times tale of intrigue and computer coding. I know I’m always calling for more and/or better coverage of the role religion plays in everyday life. But this was just too exciting:
You’re apparently not the only person of faith in the National Football League, headlines to the contrary notwithstanding.
A few days ago, we looked at the really bad story Time put out on female priests. It was just a bad story, no way around it. It had spelling errors, usage errors, inaccuracies and factual errors. It used weasel words. It managed to not find a single proponent of the historic Christian position despite being over 1,200 words long. So we weren’t the only folks who thought the article was problematic.
It’s the Holy Grail. It’s the holy writ. It’s as if the words “had appeared from somewhere on high.”
