Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
A long, long time ago, 1998 to be precise, I wrote a column marking the 10th anniversary of my weekly “On Religion” column for the Scripps Howard News Service. I opened it with an observation about one of the major changes I had witnessed on the religion beat during the previous 20 years or so.
This weekend I mentioned an online explainer piece served up by The Washington Post that pointed readers toward essential Twitter feeds linked to the civil war in Syria. The news-you-can-use pledge: Read these Twitter feeds and you’ll know what you need to know to understand the chaos and bloodshed in Syria.
I’m a longtime fan of Jake Tapper of CNN, and formerly of ABC News. I like that he asks tough but reasonable questions of politicians, regardless of which party they’re in. I like that he reports and presents the news without his opinion. I like that he’s not defensive when someone critiques his work.
The goal here at GetReligion is, of course, to look at the good and the bad in mainstream news coverage of religion events and trends. This means we devote 99 percent of our time to news articles. That’s no surprise.
Religionâs never mentioned here,â of course.âYou know them by their eyes,â and hold your tongue. âOne sideâs as bad as the other,â never worse. Christ, itâs near time that some small leak was sprung In the great dykes the Dutchman made To dam the dangerous tide that followed Seamus. Yet for all this art and sedentary trade I am incapable.
It's official: I'm leaving Post-Gazette 9/5 to be communications director for #Catholic @diopitt Thanks for a great 33 yrs in journalism
The other day, in a discussion of events in Egypt, I noted — once again — that there is no one Islam, no monolithic version of the same faith. The same thing is true of Islamic law, even among people who believe that they want to live in a society that is ruled in accordance with sharia. Click here to go back and catch up on that.
Many moons ago, when I was asking questions about why Religion News Service put “religious liberty” in quotes, defenders of the practice said it was just a way of signaling that while some people believe that a given issue deals with religious liberty, others do not. It’s a way to indicate that one is not taking sides on the matter. Astute readers noticed that if this were the policy, than we should see quotes around abortion “rights” and same-sex “marriage.”
In a recent obituary for Russell S. Doughten Jr., an âIowa filmmaker who made post-rapture evangelical movie series,â the Associated Press attempts to explain the evangelical view on the End Times:
