When I came across this Associated Press story about the trial of a Muslim U.S. soldier accused of planning to bomb Fort Hood troops, I had to go back and check out our analysis of stories from when then the news first broke last year. It’s instructive. In the breaking news, we looked at how the soldier, Army Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, was identified as well as how his religion was put in context with other aspects. For instance, he’d recently had his efforts to be given conscientious objector status held up because he’d been caught with child pornography.
The New York Times discovers Romney is Mormon
NPR, bias and journalism: A complex relationship
Why was Archbishop Lori's committee born?
Any discussion of when the U.S. Catholic bishops began to get more interested in religious liberty issues needs — at the very least — a flashback to March 10, 2006. That’s when Catholic Charities of Boston did the unthinkable.
LAT: Insert cliche assumption about evangelicals here
During election season, we will continue to see stories that make grand, sweeping statements about voter groups. As we saw with The Economist a few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times makes some assumptions about evangelicals where an editor could have easily asked “where do you see evidence for your assertion?”
Massive religious liberty lawsuit, minor broadcast coverage
Do you remember the conflagration that erupted in the mainstream media, fueled in part by members of the mainstream media, when the Susan G. Komen Foundation decided to stop voluntarily giving a small portion of its budget to the even larger Planned Parenthood? Do you remember some of those nightly newscasts?
Lady (Gaga) sings the blues
Those HHS rules head to court (once again)
It’s safe to say that several major themes continue to manifest themselves in most — but not all — of the mainstream news reports about the religious liberty cases linked to those Health and Human Services mandates on religious organizations.
