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Pod people: More on Mormon church founder Joseph Smith's 40 wives and the media's delayed bandwagon

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Pod people: More on Mormon church founder Joseph Smith's 40 wives and the media's delayed bandwagon

My "big news report card" this week on media coverage of the Mormon church acknowledging that founder Joseph Smith had up to 40 wives drew a humorous response from Daniel Burke, editor of CNN's "Belief Blog".

"Is there a curve?" Burke asked on Twitter, joking that it wasn't fair to "compare hacks" like him to The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein and the Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack.

Stack replied that it bugged her that the Mormon essay wasn't seen as big news until the Times reported on it, but she said Goodstein did a good job.

As my post noted, Stack reported on Smith's multiple wives three weeks ago, followed quickly by The Associated Press. 

But most news organizations jumped on the story only after The New York Times published the story on its front page earlier this week.

Over at Religion News Service, the delayed media bandwagon also perplexed Mormon blogger Jana Riess, who wrote a very GetReligion-esque post about it (there's a lot of that going around this week).

 

 

 


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Amen to former GetReligionista's question: Why'd a Muslim NBA player skip the national anthem?

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You can take the journalist out of GetReligion.

But apparently, you can't take GetReligion out of the journalist.

Mark Kellner, a former contributor to our esteemed website, now covers faith news as a national reporter for the Deseret News.

This week, Kellner called on his experience as a holy ghostbuster.

The top of the Deseret News report:

He did. Until he said he didn't. Either way, the pregame actions of Dion Waiters, a guard with the Cleveland Cavaliers in Wednesday's game in Salt Lake City, have focused attention on whether or not Islam allows adherents to participate in patriotic rituals — and why initial media reports didn't ask that question.
The game, in which Utah Jazz small forward Gordon Hayward scored a buzzer-beating shot to win the game 102-100, began with a bit of drama when Waiters, coming off a suspension, didn't make it to courtside during the playing of the national anthem.
Reporter Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group initially quoted Waiters as saying he skipped the anthem because the athlete "was just acting in accordance with what he feels his religious beliefs are."

From there, Kellner noted that the Ohio story changed over the next 24 hours, with the reporter citing "miscommunication" between the player and himself and Waiters taking to Twitter to declare his patriotism.

 


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U.S. Catholic bishops quietly offer update on Moralistic Therapeutic Deism in the pews

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U.S. Catholic bishops quietly offer update on Moralistic Therapeutic Deism in the pews

The U.S. Catholic bishops just heard a major -- terrifying is a better word -- presentation on the doctrinal state of life in their pews, especially among the young. I realize that arguments about Pope Francis and politics are fun, and all that, but this new survey offered some really crucial stuff, folks, if you care about the future of the church (and the news that it makes).

Good luck trying to find this in the news today. Am I missing something? What are the magic search terms?

Meanwhile, sink your journalistic teeth into the Catholic News Agency story, which ran with this headline: "Agree to disagree: Why young Catholics pose a unique challenge for the Church."

For more than three years, a working group at the bishops’ conference has conducted research aimed at finding ways to more effectively communicate the Catholic faith.  The research examined “Catholics in the pew,” looking at why they accept or disregard Church teaching on various subjects.  ...

Many engaged parishioners, regular Mass attendees involved in parish life, demonstrate great pride in their faith and are deeply tied to their community, the study showed. However, they have a tendency to set aside rules that they do not understand, complain about the Church being involved in politics, and avoid causes that they see as “judgmental.”

And among the young? 


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RNS gives story of Kenya Catholic bishops' tetanus-vaccine standoff its best shot

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Since I wrote about mainstream media ignoring the story of the standoff between Kenya's Catholic bishops and their country's government concerning a tetanus-vaccination program, two new developments have come up.

First, the Kenyan outlet CapitalFM reports that Kenya's government is taking the initiative to resolve the standoff by having independent testing of the vaccine in hope of quelling the bishops' fears:

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 12 -- Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia says plans are already underway to conduct joint tests on the tetanus vaccine with all stakeholders including the Catholic Church.

Macharia said Wednesday that the analysis will be carried out within the course of next week to identify the vaccine samples and allay fears that it is harmful to women’s reproductive health.

He explained that testing will be undertaken at the Kenya Medical Research Institute in a bid to dispel the dispute surrounding the vaccine.

“I was in Naivasha on Saturday launching the polio vaccine and I announced that we shall be having a joint exercise with not just the Catholic Church but all stakeholders to make sure that people get confidence that indeed what we are saying is true. Already, that committee has been formed and they had their first meeting on Monday,” he said.

His statement followed an order by the National Assembly Committee on Health on Tuesday for an investigation into the vaccine which the Catholic Church claimed was being used to secretly sterilise women.

Second, a few hours after my post appeared Tuesday morning complaining that the story had been overlooked by US media, news of the bishops' standoff finally made the headlines via Religion News Service.

The story by RNS Kenya correspondent Fredrick Nzwili highlights the news angle I had emphasized in my GetReligion post: What is of greatest significance from a journalism standpoint is not the supposed conspiracy, which has yet to be proven, but rather the conflict between the bishops and the government on an issue that concerns public health.


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Nurses and Ebola: MSNBC story tells a story of faith and courage

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"MSNBC can do a decent religion story? Miracles do happen," a friend of GR said in a tip about an article on nurses volunteering to fight Ebola.

And the tipster is right. For a company whose founder called church a waste of time -- as Bill Gates did in 1997 -- MSNBC has produced a remarkably sensitive, respectful story on nurses' preparations to work in Ebola-stricken Liberia.

The article packs a lot in its 1,289 words. It updates us on the quarantine controversy -- the rush of states to isolate medical workers on their return from treating Ebola patients. It's full of touching personal details on the two women who are about to leave for western Africa. And it presents an unflinching, unapologetic look at the faith that drives them to risk their lives.

MSNBC's writer clearly liked Megan Vitek, her friend Sara Phillips and their well-wishers. She notes that Vitek's home, and that of her friends, is dubbed the "Scooby Doo Mansion." She tells of Vitek visiting an apartment building and greeting an inflatable Headless Horseman dummy. It's a clever device to show the contrast with where she's going. 

Here's the lede:

Before she left town on Sunday, there were a few things that Megan Vitek, a nurse, needed to get done: Return a big serving bowl to a relative, eat a scone from her favorite coffee shop in Washington, D.C., and pick up 25 pairs of goggles to protect her team from Ebola in Liberia.

But Vitek isn't cast as a Pollyanna or proselytizer. She is instead portrayed as humble, matter-of-fact, perhaps pushing away the enormity of what she's about to confront:


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Yo, New York Times: Religion ghost in your update on Baylor's Kenneth Starr?

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When your family is full of Baylor University graduates, there is a very good chance that someone is going to send you a link to an A1 piece in The New York Times about the president of the school that many refer to as "Jerusalem on the Brazos."

Baylor's current president is one Kenneth W. Starr, a name familiar to people here in DC Beltway-land and a name that may show up in Google searches more often as Hillary Clinton makes a run at (returning to) the White House. Yes, there is a religion ghost in this fine story about Starr.

This particular story focuses on Starr's role in current NCAA debates about the amateur status of the athletes whose skills bring millions of dollars into the bank accounts of American colleges and universities. I love the fine details and close connections in this summary passage near the top of the story:


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Big news report card: Mormon church acknowledges founder Joseph Smith's many wives

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Nearly three weeks ago, the Salt Lake Tribune's Godbeat pro Peggy Fletcher Stack reported on a new Mormon essay concerning church founder Joseph Smith taking multiple wives.

A few days after that (right after reporting on Mormon undergarments), The Associated Press jumped on the story.

But not until this week did The New York Times put the story on its front page with this headline:

It's Official: Mormon Founder Had Many Wives

Apparently, when the Times declares news "official," it becomes much bigger news — because suddenly the story is everywhere.

It's time for another "big news report card," and I'm in a relatively generous mood when it comes to today's grades.


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Giant, smelly snails in Florida: Could there really be a religion angle to this story?

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This story stinks. 

I mean, it really stinks.

But that's no commentary — at all — on the quality of journalism. 

Anytime a major newspaper — in this case, the Tampa Bay Times — can cover giant, smelly snails and religion at the same time, far be it from GetReligion to turn up our nose.

Way up high, this hardly seems like a Godbeat tale:

MIAMI — At a little-known government laboratory in South Florida, they keep the snails under lock and key. Sure, any escape would be sloooooow. But giant African land snails are such a threat to humans that the rules say they have to be kept locked away, just in case.
The aptly-named snails can grow to be more than 6 inches long. Wherever they go they leave a trail of smelly excrement. They eat 500 kinds of plants. They produce up to 500 eggs two or three times a year, and because they're hermaphrodites they don't need a mate. If they aren't getting enough lime from the soil for their shells, they will gobble the stucco off the side of a house.
They also carry a parasite that can infect humans with meningitis.

But keep reading, and religion enters the picture — via Africa.


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The dance continues: Pope Francis, the U.S. bishops and alleged confusion in the press

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The U.S. Catholic bishops are meeting in Baltimore and, as you would expect, the coverage -- so far -- has been framed in terms of the the liberal, friendly, compassionate agenda of Pope Francis and the nasty, legalistic, orthodox point of view of the bishops who are "culture warriors" on abortion, marriage, religious liberty, etc.

The top of this Associated Press report is perfect, in terms of capturing this framework:

U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are gathering at a moment of turbulence for them and the American church, as Pope Francis moves toward crafting new policies for carrying out his mission of mercy -- a prospect that has conservative Catholics and some bishops in an uproar.
The assembly ... comes less than a month after Francis ended a dramatic Vatican meeting on how the church can more compassionately minister to Catholic families.
The gathering in Rome was only a prelude to a larger meeting next year which will more concretely advise Francis on church practice. Still, the open debate at the event, and the back and forth among bishops over welcoming gays and divorced Catholics who remarry, prompted stunning criticism from some U.S. bishops.

Actually, that is the top of an earlier version of the AP story, recovered via Wayback Machine. That text is now missing and the current version of that AP story, at the same URL, can be found by clicking here. There are some interesting differences ...


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