Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
For whatever reason, it’s obvious that the story of the faith-based wrestler Joel Northrup has struck some kind of national chord in the hearts and minds of evangelicals, sports fans and sports fans who are evangelicals. Young Joel’s decision to forfeit rather than to engage in combat against a female opponent — Cassy Herkelman — has really ticked of some people.
Just a few days ago, a jury convicted an Arizona man of second-degree murder, aggravated assault and leaving the scene of an accident. Faleh Hassan Almaleki’s main victim was his daughter. This crime was an “honor killing.” No one disputes that the daughter was targeted for becoming too “Westernized.” In fact, the phrase “honor killing” is everywhere in the media coverage.
As I mentioned Tuesday night, I had been waiting 12 months for the Los Angeles Times to write the postscript on Cardinal Roger Mahony’s troubled 25-year tenure atop the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the country.
Exciting news from the Pew Research Center today: religion coverage doubled from 2009 to 2010 in the mainstream media. Unfortunately, religion still remains just 2 percent of the overall coverage, with elections, foreign policy and the economy dominating the news cycle. Still, it did barely top science, education, immigration and race/gender issues.
We’ve had quite a few reader submissions of stories covering the murder of four Americans by Somali pirates. The coverage is really all over the map. Much of it is good, some is a bit weak. This New York Times story, for instance, has six reporters but is unable to give anything other than the slightest passing reference to the religion angle. That failure led to confusion as the very first comment to the piece — and many others — asked what in the world they were doing in pirate-infested waters.
A Naval Academy graduate received an honorable discharge last week after two earlier denials from the Navy. The American Civil Liberties Union in Connecticut had sued the Navy on the graduate’s behalf, based on his religious objection to war and the potential that he might have to kill others.
That’s my question after reading no shortage of news coverage concerning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s call Tuesday for the outlawing of legal brothels in his home state’s rural counties.
Bernard Nathanson was a leading New York City abortion doctor who helped found NARAL. Originally that stood for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. It was later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League. Now it’s known as NARAL Pro-Choice America. Nathanson worked with abortion rights pioneers for the legalization of abortion in the United States, a goal they accomplished with the Supreme Court’s Roe V. Wade decision. Nathanson reports that he was personally responsible for some 75,000 abortions. He performed one of these on his own unborn child. Previously he’d paid for another girlfriend to have an abortion.
