Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Earlier this year, I complained about the lack of coverage surrounding President Barack Obamaâs confession of Christian faith at a pre-Easter Easter breakfast he hosted at the White House. I wrote:
It seems that the recent Arizona Republic news feature about Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted’s decision to require priests in his diocese to stop offering consecrated wine to the laity during most Masses stirred up so much debate that the newspaper decided to produce a sequel.
On this week’s Crossroads, host Todd Wilken and I talked about media coverage of a possible name change by the Southern Baptist Convention.
Writing a provocative, timely, compelling profile is tough. How do you write a profile without becoming enamored with the successful book sales, the dynamic speeches or the captivated audiences? You want to describe and elaborate on why an individual is so successful or effective in his or her work, so it’s difficult to remain completely objective.
Yes, gentle readers, you know you might be in a bit of trouble when you open up a story about the intricate details of Catholic liturgy and there is a photo showing a priest saying prayers at the altar and the caption says:
I recently wrote a Scripps Howard News Service column that I thought was a bit of a stretch, in terms of the religion beat. Still, I had heard my share of emotional discussions about the issue that I knew there was some strange kind of fire underneath the smoke.
A story this week in The Age, Melbourne’s major daily newspaper, leaves me puzzled. I am not sure what the paper’s religion editor, Barney Zwartz is doing in his article “Ex-nun a cardinal sinner in the mind of the church“. Read at one level, it c0uld be a silly puff piece. Yet there are hints the story could have a deeper meaning–wheels within wheels–where The Age‘s editorial voice is heard by its allowing the subject to impeach herself.
Last week we looked at coverage of Pat Robertson’s comments that divorce of a spouse with Alzheimer’s can be justified. We talked about whether Robertson’s rhetoric needs coverage and how the Associated Press actually used the Gospel of Mark to counter what Robertson said.
