There are puff pieces and then there are puff pieces. But this Saturday Beliefs article from the Los Angeles Times borders on well-disguised press release.
LAT: Replacing reporting with boostering
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Something borrowed, something Hindu?
Pop singer Katy Perry and comedian Russell Brand married this weekend in India. Katy Perry began her career as a singer in the Contemporary Christian Music market so I was a bit surprised to read that it was a traditional Hindu ceremony. Maybe. I read that in the Washington Post, the Boston Herald, Entertainment Weekly, ABC News, Telegraph, Daily Mail, New York Daily News, MTV, and so on and so forth (this is a story of international importance). Here’s a snippet from a typical news report:
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A scout is... Christian?
This week, the Charlotte Observer reported Christ Covenant Church, an evangelical Presbyterian megachurch in North Carolina, rejected two parents who had signed up as Cub Scout leaders. The father was even a former Eagle scout. The story ended up grabbing national headlines. Why?:
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Don't ask, don't tell, don't cover
At this point, it appears that Democrats who are fighting to survive in red zip codes are going to make it to Election Day without a clear resolution of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” standoff. That’s the last thing they needed — a final wave of ads talking about a hot-button cultural issue.
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Crystal Cathedral's Chapter 11
The Crystal Cathedral is kind of a big deal. A stone’s throw from Disneyland, the megachurch is a SoCal cultural landmark in its own right. And Robert H. Schuller who started it all in a drive-in parking lot, became a pioneer of televangelism with the “Hour of Power.”
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Creating a ghost-shaped news hole
I thought that I should write about the Texas Rangers winning the American League pennant, since fanboy Bobby Ross, Jr., is probably still sleeping off a serious Ginger Ale hangover.
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Pod people: Juan Williams, First Amendment
Can’t get enough commentary on Juan Williams’ firing from NPR? Love to talk about tea party Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell? Want to hear a GetReligionista commend the New York Times? Then check out our latest podcast here. Guided by the soothing voice and insightful questions of Todd Wilken, we discuss all these and more on Crossroads.
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A dog who prays, no really
My husband is a cat person, which means that he grumbles whenever the dogs in our neighborhood howl over every siren or bark at every squirrel. So when we watched the video of a dog who says grace, I expected him to barf or maybe roll his eyes. Nope, the video generated a good chuckle before we read the rest of the story on CNN.
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Japan lives and dies with its ghosts
What we have here is one of those New York Times think pieces about an important trend among important people in an important corner of the world. This is something that the Times does really, really well, most of the time.
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