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Francis is the right kind of pope, at least for Rolling Stone

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Rolling Stone has done gaudy before. Its writers have weathered Lady Gaga’s meat gown, Madonna’s frills and external bras, Bowie’s androgynous alien Ziggy Stardust and more. Yet its cover story gets goggle-eyed at Catholic trappings — the “absurd, impossibly baroque backdrop of the Vatican” — just to show Pope Francis as moderate and low-key. And a liberal, modern, progressive (i.e., good) pontiff. All that and more goes into the cover story of the current Rolling Stone, painting Francis as a huge surprise to a dusty, arthritic institution: a sweet man bursting with idealism, pushing the Roman Catholic Church to shed its benighted notions of politics and morality.

GetReligionista Mark Kellner wrote a breezy, well-deserved diss to the Rolling Stone article. Now let’s peel a few layers off this onion.

What Stone writer Mark Binelli gives us is an expanded version of hopeful chatterings last year by liberal media, when Francis was elected. Granted, Rolling Stone celebrates colorful writing, but Binelli’s story reads like an odd mix of naïvete and cynicism. Case in point:


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Obama erases the 'scare quotes' around religious freedom?

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In recent years, there has been quite a bit of discussion at GetReligion about the ways in which mainstream journalists use “scare quotes” as a way to suggest which causes they see as questionable, as opposed to social, political, cultural or religious causes that they believe are serious concerns. Consider, for example, the terms “religious liberty” — a very common term in First Amendment law and studies — and “religious freedom.”

You may recall that Washington Post headline not that long ago that ran above a relevant Religion News Service piece:

Activists gather to plot defense of ‘religious liberty’


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10 years of GetReligion: Five things they didn't tell me

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Nearly four years and 500 posts ago, I became the newest GetReligionista. Now, somehow, I’m the second-longest-tenured regular contributor after the illustrious Terry Mattingly himself.

As we celebrate GetReligion’s 10th anniversary, our esteemed editor tmatt has reflected on “why we are still here” — Part 1 and Part 2 — and talked about “Labels, labels, labels, labels!” He’s even recorded a podcast. George Conger and my bride Tamie Ross have shared additional insight.

I can’t remember exactly when I started reading GetReligion or how I came across it. But in March 2010, I jumped at the opportunity to join an all-star team that included Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Brad Greenberg. As I wrote in my introductory post:


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Pod people: Russell Wilson, ghosts, 10 years of GetReligion

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Pod people: Russell Wilson, ghosts, 10 years of GetReligion

In a perfect world, the easy way to do mainstream news criticism is to find a really bad example of a problem and then, a few days later, find an example of an equally important news outlet that managed to do the story right. In this case, we are talking about one of those GetReligion ghosts, a religion angle woven into a major news story — yet missed by reporters and editors working on the story. For the past 10 years, spotting ghosts has been one of the primary duties of your GetReligionistas.

Hours before the Super Bowl, I posted an item praising the ESPN.com team for a feature story about the life, work and faith of Seattle Seahawk quarterback Russell Wilson. Thanks, by the way, to the 20,000-plus readers who passed that post along in social media.

First of all, the creators of this story did the obvious, which is discuss the connections between Wilson’s Christian faith — which he talks about all of the time — and his life on and off the gridiron, focusing on his behind-the-scenes work as a real volunteer in a children’s hospital. That was the easy ghost to spot, one that 99 percent of the people writing profiles of Wilson (and the influence of his late father) manage to see.


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10 years of GetReligion: Women and the Godbeat

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My 14-year-old daughter sits next to me as I type. Kendall often does this, curious about the day’s subject matter. More often than not, she is interested (and I like to think it’s more than the caramel lattes I make us). She can identify with and wants to learn more about the issues and stories of today. But beyond that, she sees relevance as we talk about people and news and faith issues. Even before society will allow her to drive or vote, she knows she is permitted to think and reason and form opinions, changing them as she matures. That, as she would say, “is really cool.”

I’m thrilled by her interest in media, especially its coverage of religion and related topics. But a larger question looms when I think of her generation. And mine, and my mother’s and grandmothers’: Are we doing right by women when it comes to religion coverage, on both sides of the press? Does our industry have enough female Godbeat writers, and are we as women spending a proportionate amount of time reading and discussing stories with religious themes or context?

GetReligion has been blessed with a number of extraordinary writers during its 10-year history, and I walk in the oh-so-stylish shoes of some gifted female journalists. Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Elizabeth Eisenstadt-Evans come immediately to mind because of the questions they asked during their time here and the myriad ways in which they made religion news coverage better.


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The Guardian: Ridiculing the saints, the Virgin and prayer

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Why do we fight? Why do we write? What motivates our editor tmatt and the team at GetReligion to do what we do? For me, as I expect it is for my colleagues, it is the love of the game. To showcase the best examples of the craft of journalism — while chiding those that fall short.

I began to follow GetReligion shortly after it went online in 2004. I was a professional acquaintance of one of its co-founders, Doug LeBlanc and a long time admirer of his work and that of the editor, Terry Mattingly. Their call to improve the craft (not police it as some critics have charged) resonated with me. When I joined three years ago I was honored by their invitation and the opportunity to participate in their work by looking at the English, European and overseas press.

I was tasked with looking at stories such as this one from last week’s Guardian entitled: “Spanish government questioned over claims of divine help in economic crisis”, with an eye towards applying the standards of classical Anglo-American journalism to the story, as well as offering American readers a window into the British and European press world.


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Were there any ghosts in the Alfred Rosenberg diary? You think?

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First things first: Anyone who is interested in history, especially the history of the ideas behind Adolph Hitler, is going to amazed by the twists and turns that unfold in the new Los Angeles Times “Column One” feature about the search for the lost diary of Nazi intellectual Alfred Rosenberg. This is one amazing ride, with the son of a Holocaust survivor acting as a kind of quiet, peaceful, but highly motivated Indiana Jones on the quest to find the Great White Whale of Holocaust studies. Here is how reporter Richard Simon begins this riveting tale, which has a Washington, D.C., dateline:

Mayer helped maintain the vast collection of artifacts at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and knew the diary had been kept by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party’s chief ideologue and a confidant of Adolf Hitler.

The diary was found in the final days of World War II, hidden behind a false wall in a Bavarian castle. Excerpts were introduced into evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.


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Fetal distraction: Spinning abortion numbers

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Abortions have fallen to their lowest rate since the Supreme Court enshrined it as a constitutional right in 1973, according to a new report by the Guttmacher Institute: 16.9 abortions for every 1,000 women between 15 and 44, versus 16.3 per 1,000 women back in 1973. Why this is happening is another matter. Cue the media debates.

Guttmacher offered a few explanations. One was the improvement in contraceptives including IUDs. Another was the well-known deferral in childbearing by many couples. Still another was the rise in early abortions induced by chemicals, from six percent of all abortions in 2001 to 23 percent in 2011.

You can probably guess one reason the institute didn’t consider: Because a lot of women might consider it wrong. That may be because of leakage from its activism wing. As its own research announcement said:


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10 years of GetReligion: Labels, labels, labels, labels!

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It is my understanding that there was some kind of Jerry Springer-esque debate last night between young-earth creationist Ken (hello dinosaurs) Ham and Bill (The Science Guy) Nye. Let me state up front that I am not terribly interested in what either man had to say.

However, I am curious to know if any of the thousands of religion-beat pros who live and move and have their being on Twitter can answer the following questions:

(1) At any point in the broadcast, was the term “creationist” defined? Did the definition involve six 24-hour days or was the emphasis on God being meaningfully involved in creation, period?


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