Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
When it comes to religion, Ned Flanders generally steals all the thunder for references to faith and The Simpsons. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s daily newspaper, shook things up for a day, offering some quality fodder for religion blogs by declaring Homer Simpson as Catholic. We could probably create a context out of this, but check out some of the headlines:
When news broke on Monday about the death of a prominent pro-life activist, I expected to read about it in the conservative and pro-life press. But I wasn’t so sure what to expect in terms of the mainstream media.
The headline on the recent Time cover story tried to set an epic tone, summing up a story that was going to courageously explore an election season that has intimidated politicians (mostly on one side of the political aisle) and, thus, has intimidated journalists.
I’m certainly no fashionista. Most of my shirts are of the T variety, and I’m still rocking a lot of the clothes I acquired (second hand) in high school. So take with a grain of salt the following evaluation of a recent Los Angeles Times article about Islamic headscarves getting fashionable.
As your GetReligionistas have noted many times, it’s pretty obvious that many people — including more than a few mainstream reporters — are confused about the meaning of the word “evangelical.” Heck, I’m not sure that I know what that word means anymore and I used to be one. The Rev. Billy Graham once told me that he wasn’t sure how to define “evangelical.” Honest.
A columnist at the Wall Street Journal used to regularly feature snippets from sports columnists who fancied themselves political pundits. You’d be expecting a nice piece on the last golf tournament but you’d instead get some tirade about the Iraq War or how awful President Bush is.
Despite remarkable popularity and obsessive fans not seen since the head Deadhead died, Insane Clown Posse manages to attract little attention from music critics or cultural commentators. (For the uninitiated, look upon their wikipedia, ye mighty, and despair.) But despite the amazingly off-putting profanity and sexual imagery of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope’s horrorcore lyrics, clearly these two rappers have a powerful ability to connect with what I think it’s fair to characterize as an alienated and disaffected fan base. I think the ICP phenomenon is probably a lot more complex than and interesting than it appears, even though cultural elites seem to disdainfully regard it as something unfortunately endemic among the lower classes like the musical version of methamphetamine. (Then again, there’s probably a lot of overlap on the ICP fans and meth users venn diagram.)
All together now, let’s say the words of wisdom that I learned as a Baylor University undergraduate: No non-NoZe knows the no-nonsense, non-NoZe news that the NoZe knows.
There was a massive “game-changing” development in stem cell research last month, but you probably didn’t hear about it.
