Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
I want to talk about media coverage of the man who was convicted today of shooting up the Family Research Council. But let’s first go back to the horrible story about the murderous rampage that one disturbed individual went on in Arizona.
Here’s a proposition for GetReligion readers: The quality of a news article should be measured not by how well it is written, but by how well it is read. The reporter’s task is to provide facts, context, and balanced interpretation of an event. However, if the reader is not able to grasp the meaning or context of a story the work, while being technically proficient, is unsuccessful as journalism.
If I weren’t so sick I would have already done this but in the days to come, I hope to mark our anniversary by reviewing some of my work over 2012. But if there’s one thing I already know, it’s that I wish we’d focus more on what news isn’t covered as opposed to critiquing what’s there. When you look at some of the reader reflections Bobby solicited in recent days, many are wondering how wise it is to focus on areas where the actual coverage has faltered the most (as opposed to spreading it around more). I think that’s always a difficult balance.
Every now and then, someone sends your GetReligionistas the URL for a story that is simply too good, too interesting to post right away. The problem is that it’s hard to know what to write, when dealing with one of those stunning long reads that reads like the summary of a 12-hour documentary series, with all of the imagery playing on a big screen in your head.
The New York Times has a story about three lawsuits that have been filed over the erection of an eruv, or ritual boundary, for Orthodox Jews in the Westhampton Beach area of New York. It gets some important details wrong. Let’s look at the beginning:
The New York Times may not love American conservatives, but they are certainly enamored with a British one, David Cameron. His push to introduce gay marriage in England, over the objections of the rank and file members of his party, has the paper swooning.
The Associated Press carried a story the other day that made a very interesting — and newsworthy — claim about the ever-controversial Rev. Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church in Dallas.
