Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The newspaper that lands in my front yard has ventured into an important topic that has, in some parts of the country, caused controversy. The issue at hand: whether public organizations should tweak some of their policies in order to cooperate with religious groups that stress modesty.
Harold Bloom, America’s Greatest Living Literary Scholarâ¢, wrote an essay for the New York Times over the weekend titled “Will This Election Be the Mormon Breakthrough?” The title doesn’t seem terribly ominous, Bloom has famously written a book on American religion, and he’s known for having a fascination with Mormons. What could go wrong?
Among his fellow cartoonists, “Family Circle” patriarch Bil Keane was well known for many reasons, including his often surprisingly hip and bizarre wit (which, obviously, he deliberately left out of his oh-so-straightforward cartoons). Can you imagine Keane lending his pen to a series of “Zippy the Pinhead” cartoons? Sure, why not.
I never suffered too terribly from bullying but I had friends and family members who certainly had it worse. My brother was my hero for how he took on bullies who were several years older — and much bigger — than him. He had been assaulted for weeks by this gang of yahoos who made fun of my brother for how smart he was. They kept threatening to beat him up and, in fact, had shoved him around a bit. The school was of absolutely no help in the matter, which infuriated my public school teacher mother. My dad and a few other men gave my brother the news: he’d have to stand up to the bullies. And that is how my bro went from being being bullied to not having to worry about being bullied. He took on four dudes by himself and won. He earned the nickname Rocky. Oh, and he — not the bullies — got suspended.
Being that he’s arguably the country’s best known Mormon and much has been made of the political impact of his religion, there has been comparatively little reporting on how Mitt Romney has actually lived his faith. To some extent this is because it’s easier for reporters to reduce Romney’s faith to just another variable in the political calculus. But it’s also true that reporting on someone’s religious life is a deeply personal matter, and it requires great effort and understanding to do it right.
If your GetReligionistas wished to do so, we could open up a second weblog this month and do nothing but write about the mainstream coverage of the upcoming changes in the English translation — repeat, the translation — of the Catholic Eucharistic texts used in Western Rite.
While the Penn State scandal has riveted most of the nation, Washington, D.C., has also been caught up in a scandal that is, in its own way, almost as shocking — especially with the bad timing on the calendar.
On multiple occasions in recent days, I’ve spoken to young journalists about becoming a reporter. As I’ve reflected on my decision to change careers and enter journalism, it makes me smile. It says something about how awesome journalism is that I chose to do it at a significant cut in pay. In my mind, the fun of finding new topics to write about and craft a story more than makes up for the fact that I can’t afford anything.
