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One of the nation’s top religion writers looked at the following Washington Post story that ran the other day and his/her head almost exploded after reading the lede.
I think it’s fair to say that while Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy has forced the media to do more and better coverage of Mormonism, the religion is still treated as a cultural and theological oddity. Much of the coverage is still sensational — as I type this, The Daily Beast is hyping an interview with “a direct descendant of Brigham Young, Sue Emmett [who] left the church because of the very values she says would make Romney a frightening president.” I hate to break it to The Daily Beast, but Brigham Young had 55 wives and 57 children. A gathering of his third generation descendents would look like Calcutta on Free Malaria Shot Day. Finding one of them who would disavow Mitt Romney and their great-great grandfather’s legacy is a matter of simple probability, and it’s neither novel or illuminating.
So, New York Times readers, it’s time to click your heels together and repeat the mantra, “There’s no place like Kansas,” “There’s no place like Kansas,” “There’s no place like Kansas,” over and over again.
Two weeks ago, I complained about the Denver Post’s account of a “deeply religious” victim of the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre. For some vague, unknown reason (based on the Post story), the victim, Pierce OâFarrill, forgave the man who opened fire on him and dozens of others.
The Associated Press has a story headlined “Pastor on trial in Vt; mom still AWOL with child.” It begins:
When I received a one-line e-mail that there had been a mass shooting at a Sikh temple, I had a .5 second heart attack. We have family who live across the street from such a temple in Wisconsin, and the line didn’t include information about location or whether the shooter was on the loose.
Some readers sent in a recent piece from Salon, which (for those who stopped reading it back in the 1990s) bills itself as “the leading progressive news site, combining award-winning commentary and reporting on the most important issues of the day.” But we don’t really look at “progressive” or “conservative” sites for how well they report the news because we’re more interested in mainstream publications. If they want to publish a piece about Gabby Douglas and how it would be easier to like her “if she were not so, so, so into Jesus,” that’s their business.
So I was driving through this astonishing Appalachian thunderstorm last night, punching the radio over and over trying to get weather information, when the tuner hit a strong signal and I heard something really bizarre coming out of the car speakers.
