Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
If you are a consumer who truly loves books (and libraries, and news magazines, etc.), that recent A1 Washington Post news feature on the death dive of the Borders bookstore chain was a real eyeopener. Grab a box of tissues and read it, including this shot of reality:
The week I moved to the Green Bay area, the ushers at church handed us kitchen magnets listing the Packers schedules with a little plug for the men’s ministry. That was when I realized that sports and religion blend quite frequently here in cheese town.
I’ll admit that I’m a bit ignorant about some of the things that go on in the corners of this country. But there is no way that the inference created by this AP story can be correct.
I’ve been paying a little bit of attention to the media hullabaloo over the Alabama Governor’s altar call and it got me thinking of how I wish another high profile figure’s comments on religion had gotten a bit more mainstream media treatment. I speak, of course, about the powerful Ricky Gervais. My husband and I are fans of Gervais, who’s probably best known as the creator of The Office. The British version of the show is brilliant. Now, little of his work since then has been worth any of your time, but that’s another story.
We spend a lot of time here emphasizing the importance of considering religion when journalists cover a beat (ghost anyone?). But there are reporters out there who dig for and pounce on those religion angles, either in national news stories, denominational news or maybe in an entrepreneurial story.
As you would expect, folks in GetReligion land are still thinking about that 6,000th-post landmark that we hit the other day, especially since it came so close to the site’s upcoming seventh birthday, which is on Feb. 1. Thus, you will not be surprised that this week’s Crossroads podcast turned into a discussion of the current state of religion coverage in the mainstream press.
When you think of someone doing right by the Church of Cyprus, you probably don’t think of Boy George. And yet there he was, returning an icon he’d bought (without realizing its origin) in 1985, years after the Turkish invasion. The BBC writes:
In other news from the Los Angeles Times Godbeat, the paper recently published a story about an ecumenical effort to preserve California’s deserts.
