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âTruth is true only within a certain period of time,â observed a spokesman for the Burma’s military junta in the aftermath of that countryâs 1988 pro-democracy uprising, reported Emma Larkin in her 2004 political travelogue-cum-biography âFinding George Orwell in Burmaâ. âWhat was truth once may no longer be truth after many months or years.â
What we have here, in this short New York Times wedding announcement, is a dangerously vague and terribly loaded word — “assisting” — being used in a liturgical context of some kind. It’s crucial that the word “assisting” is being used in a way that directly connects it with another controversial word in this day and age — “married.”
When a story uses extra adjectives or adverbs to pretty up a story, you know something might be fishy. If the information, data and narrative can’t speak for themselves, it’s worth reexamining the piece more closely.
I believe it was President Obama who once said something about the press corps in Washington getting all “wee-weed up” in August. There have been a few news stories in recent weeks that have drawn more attention than they should have (and a few that have certainly received less). But the story we’re going to look at here might take the cake for summer silliness.
Over the weekend, I complained about the holy ghosts in a New York Times story about disputed oil drilling on a Montana Indian reservation.
As you would imagine, I have received a few notes seeking my take, as a journalist and as an Orthodox Christian, on the events involving that crudely named feminist band in Russia. You know, the one that drew this headline the other day in The New York Times: “Anti-Putin Stunt Earns Punk Band Two Years in Jail.”
It is a common critique that residents of one country are disinterested in the goings on in other countries. But one story from this weekend spread quickly across news media and social media — albeit less so in American media than globally. The story is a sad one. I first learned about it from a news outlet called Times of India:
As all loyal GetReligion readers know, sometimes we see things make it into news print that are simply too good, too strange, too funny, to make up.
In this weekâs podcast Issues Etc. host Todd Wilkin and I discussed three recent GetReligion stories: Doggie Masses offered by Inclusive Catholics in Australia, one-sided reporting on Missouri’s Amendment 2, and the parole of Michelle Martin.
