Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Once again, let’s repeat together the following foundational truth of journalism — reporters are not responsible for the headlines that grace or disgrace their news stories.
A story nearly made for a book or a movie made the rounds a few weeks ago, when the Associated Press reported that a black church won a court battle against the owner of a Ku Klux Klan shop.
It takes a certain amount of courage to write a news story about the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Last week, former Michigan congressman Mark Siljander was sentenced for helping an Islamic charity suspected of having ties to al Qaeda. It’s not that it didn’t get significant coverage, but considering this was a former member of Congress, the coverage wasn’t terribly thorough. The underlying story is interesting on two religious fronts. Most media coverage focused on only one.
I’d like to call your attention to some great religion reporting in the British press this week concerning Dr. Jeffrey John, the Dean of St. Albans Cathedral. Attention to detail and context, lightness of touch, lucid prose and a high degree of intellectual and moral sophistication mark these stories.
From the day GetReligion opened its cyber-doors, we have argued that the liberal half of American Christianity deserves more coverage in the mainstream press. Most of the time, coverage of Christian liberalism turns everything into politics even faster than coverage of traditional, doctrinally conservative forms of Christianity.
Today we celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. It should be pretty hard to avoid a religion angle when discussing this holiday.
Last night’s Patriots-Broncos game set viewing records, which is amazing since the Broncos were completely out of it by half time. Even I, a die hard fan, couldn’t stand watching our defense give up touchdown after touchdown and asked my husband to please turn the channel. And so Tebow Fever may take a rest for a few months until the 2012 preseason.
Another day, another story about God and the National Football League. This week, in the midst of its purple-and-black playoff blitz, The Baltimore Sun recently offered a look at the young life of Ravens cornerback Cary Williams, who had a very troubled decade or two before turning things around with a little help, apparently, from God and a good church.
