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RNS feature on Yom Kippur misses the basics: What's the day about?

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As Yom Kippur approaches on sundown tomorrow, the Religion News Service runs a heartfelt story on non-Jews who support the Jewish community.

A heartfelt story that’s nevertheless haunted by religious ghosts. But let's praise its merits first.

The article looks at a decade-old trend among Reform synagogues: calling non-Jewish congregants to the bima, or platform, for a formal blessing from the rabbi. It begins with the leader who started it, Rabbi Janet Marder of California.

Back in 2004, as RNS tells it, Marder called 100 people, mostly spouses of Jews, to the bima, then said:

“What we want to thank you for today is your decision to cast your lot with the Jewish people by becoming part of this congregation, and the love and support you give to your Jewish partner.
“Most of all, we want to offer our deepest thanks to those of you who are parents, and who are raising your sons and daughters as Jews,” she continued. “In our generation, which saw one-third of the world’s Jewish population destroyed … every Jewish boy and girl is a gift to the Jewish future.”
The reaction to the blessing that followed — an outpouring of emotion and gratitude  — surprised Marder. “I thought it would be a nice thing to do,” she said. “I was not prepared for the way people were weeping.”

Journalistically, the story is a creative break from the usual Yom Kippur fare, which often takes the form of politics (this year, Pope Francis' visit to the U.S.) or food (tasty ways to follow the all-day fast).  The RNS article instead takes some well-known facts -- like the insularity of many synagogues and the percentage of Jews who marry outside the faith -- and tells what a group of temples are doing about it.

And rather than coast on assumptions or low-level reactions, RNS digs up data and interviews leaders like Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism:


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Listen! Eric Metaxas gives GetReligion a shoutout in interview of David Gregory

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As we noted earlier this month, David Gregory, former moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," has written a new book titled "How's Your Faith?: An Unlikely Spiritual Journey."

On his national radio show, Eric Metaxas just interviewed Gregory about his new book.

Here's one cool thing about the interview: Metaxas gives a nice shoutout to GetReligion and our illustrious leader, tmatt.

Metaxas suggests that GetReligion "isn't snarky at all but just wonderful reporting on how the press doesn't get religion." Actually, we are snarky occasionally, but on our best days, we try to be nice and informative.

By all means,  listen to Metaxas' conversation with Gregory. (The part with the former NBC newsman starts about the 10:30 mark.) 

For a little more insight on Gregory and his faith, check out Religion News Service senior national correspondent Cathy Grossman's recent feature.


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Pope Francis press watch: @JamesMartinSJ kicks off the week with #PapalGoofs

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If you are interested in (a) the Jesuits, (b) old-school Catholic liberalism, (c) humor, (d) religion news or (e) all of the above, then you really need to be following Father James Martin on Twitter -- @JamesMartinSJ. You are really going to want to jump on board this week to get his take on the @Pontifex visit to America's elite media corridor between Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Father Martin is well known for his popular books (such as "Between Heaven and Mirth" and "Jesus: A Pilgrimage"), for his analysis work at America magazine and as the official chaplain of the old "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. He is also, as you would expect, a skilled observer of religion-beat work in the American press.

This weekend, he got an early jump on the papal-coverage tsunami by starting a lively hashtag noting some early mistakes made by print and broadcast journalists in their coverage of the Pope Francis stop in Cuba -- #PapalGoofs. He was very gentle in this series of corrections, providing no URLs pointing directly to examples of these media mistakes. Surely some of these helpful tips were offered as preemptive strikes? 

Obviously, #PapalGoofs refers to goofs that journalists may or may not make while covering the pope, as opposed to goofs that observers believe have been made by the pope. Francis critics will need to start their own hashtag.

We will jump into those tweets in a moment -- Bobby Ross, Jr., style -- but first I want to note that many, or even most, of the mistakes illustrated in the first (let's hope he continues) #PapalGoofs stream are addressed in the online stylebook of the Religion Newswriters Association. You may want to bookmark that right here at ReligionStylebook.com. 

Now, here we go. And the last shall be first:


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Here come your think pieces on Pope Francis: Media want a 'pope of our own making?'

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While working on Anglican matters earlier this week -- as in Canterbury's call for a crucial, but rather unofficial global gathering about the future of the Anglican Communion -- I bumped into a rather interesting commentary by a Canadian Anglican about the mainstream press and, you guessed it, Pope Francis.

Needless to say, I expect that we will be running quite a few posts this week about mainstream coverage of the pope's visit to the Acela media zone in the urban American Northeast. I will probably include several "think pieces" about religion-news issues in that mix, even though we normally only point readers toward essays of that kind on weekends. 

This piece by Father Tim Perry of Ontario -- "Francis: A Pope of Our Own Making?" -- was actually written fairly early in the Francis media storm, but it still makes timeless points worth pondering right now. He starts off with the immediate assumption that the CONTENT of the Francis era will be quite different from that of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Let us attend.

While it is certainly the case that Francis is, and will be, different, I notice in these claims a curious pattern which has little to do with the three Popes, and much more to do with their coverage in the Western media. In short, the media quickly (subconsciously, I expect) decide on the “papal narrative,” and then over-report the stuff that fits and under-report the stuff that doesn’t.

Note the stress on underreporting the parts of the work of Pope Francis that do not fit the chosen media narrative -- such as this pope's remarkably consistent discussions of Confession, the work of Satan in the modern world and the centrality of family life in God's creation.


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The Sanders speech at Liberty U: Did it lead to any debates on that campus?

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The Sanders speech at Liberty U: Did it lead to any debates on that campus?

So gentle readers, raise your hands if you are already tired of the numbingly predicable acts of political theater that are being called "debates." 

My hand is way up. I realize that the CNN ratings were really high for the recent GOP gabfest, but that doesn't mean that -- other than in their opening statements -- the candidates actually said much that would help citizens grasp their stands on real issues.

But something did happen the other day that served as a brief ray of sunshine in national political discourse. I am referring to the visit that Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont made to Liberty University. It isn't every day that a self-proclaimed socialist, and secular Jew, pops in to speak during convocation at one of America's most symbolic evangelical -- or even small "f" fundamentalist -- universities, one founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

I wrote a GetReligion post about some of the coverage of the Sanders speech and it also provided the hook for this week's "Crossroads" podcast with host Todd Wilken. Click here to tune in on that.

During that podcast, I wondered if Sanders asked to speak there or if Liberty leaders asked him to speak in convocation. As it turns out, it was Liberty that -- to its credit -- extended the invitation. Bravo for that invitation and for the candidate's decision to accept it.

As you would expect, the text of the Sanders speech -- click here for The Washington Post annotated version of that -- was packed with biblical references making a case for common ground on issues of economic and social justice. He also was very blunt in stating that he hoped for civil discourse on these matters, even though he completely disagreed with Liberty, and traditional Christian doctrine in general, on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

However, I thought that the most interesting moment came in the question-and-answer session when the candidate was asked (this inquiry drew a wave of applause) why his concerns for children didn’t extend to those in the womb.


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See? Washington Post shows that handling complex Anglican timeline isn't that hard

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Faithful GetReligion readers will know that I moved from the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area this past summer, returning to the hills of East Tennessee. It was a wonderful move on so many levels, yet it has raised a few challenges.

One of them is that I no longer see The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post in dead-tree-pulp form, which, frankly, made it much easier to cruise through them looking for stories relevant to our work here at GetReligion. Well, the Sun rarely took long to scan, since it is a ghost of its former self, but the Post was worth spending time with each day.

All of this is to say that I need to write a second Anglican timeline disease post today, for the simple reason that -- since I no longer see the actual newspaper -- I didn't bump into the Post coverage of that issue online until after I had written my early-morning offering that focused on The New York Times. If you missed that earlier piece, then please click here for context.

We need a second piece in this case, because the Post story demonstrates that it is possible -- with a few specific words and phrases -- to let readers know that the Anglican wars have been going on for a long time and didn't start in 2003 with the election of a noncelibate gay bishop in a tiny New England diocese. There's even a hint right there in the lede.

The world’s third-largest Christian denomination appears to be in serious reflection about how -- and whether -- to stay unified amid divisions about human sexuality and other issues.

Note (a) there are "other issues" and (b) that the fights concern "human sexuality" in general, as opposed to debates about the moral status of homosexual acts, alone.

A few lines later, readers learn more:


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New York Times writes evocative feature on who will meet Pope Francis in America

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When Pope Francis visits the United States next week, he will visit not only the high and mighty but the low and humble. Other mainstream media have often made that point. The New York Times proves it in its advance feature that ran yesterday -- with old-school enterprise reporting.

Fast-reading despite its nearly 1,600 words, the Times story offers both an overview and specifics. And it weaves them into prose that can be sweeping without getting flowery:

A papal visit is always an occasion of high ceremony and high-level politics. When Francis comes to the East Coast next week, he will, like his predecessors, visit the president and address the United Nations. He will pray with bishops. He will celebrate Mass before enormous crowds.
But to an unparalleled degree, this pope is making a point of spending time with people on the bottom rungs of American society: day laborers, refugees, the homeless, underprivileged schoolchildren and prisoners.
Like no pope before him, Francis is using the grand stage of his trip to the United States to demonstrate that the church exists to serve the poor and marginalized, and that this is the responsibility of all Catholics — whether pontiff or parishioner.

Many such articles would continue pretty much that same tone throughout -- that know-it-all, omniscient tone about this "people's pope." The Times doesn't; in this story, it fans out and talks to some of the 900 people who expect to meet the pope.

And it doesn't just say that Francis will visit inmates, for instance. It gives specifics on the offenses -- that Amanda Cortes, the subject of the lede, "worked for years as a phone-sex operator" and has been "awaiting trial in Philadelphia on charges that she brutally murdered her infant son." The article also doesn't just say that Francis will meet a refugee from Central America. It says the refugee "fled Honduras alone at age 14 and made his way through Guatemala and Mexico dodging armed gangs and riding atop freight trains."


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Rumors of the death of the Anglican Communion are premature, but relevant?

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Once again we return to the media myth that the doctrinal wars in the Anglican Communion were caused by the 2003 election of the first openly gay and noncelibate bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church, the tiny Diocese of New Hampshire, to be specific.

Yes, it would make religion writers' lives much easier if that were true. 

However, sometimes professionals who write about complicated news events have to wrestle with complicated information that may require -- brace yourselves -- the addition of an entire sentence or two of background in a news story. It may even require talking about doctrinal issues other than those directly linked to sexuality.

So, once again, let us return to what your GetReligionistas have long called "Anglican timeline disease." The latest episode is linked to the announcement by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby that he is inviting 37 archbishops -- note the specific number -- to a January meeting that he will host to "discuss key issues face to face, including a review of the structures of the Anglican Communion."

This news led to waves of speculation, followed by a truly fascinating tweet from the Lambeth Palace press office. The following was not taken from The Onion:


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Here is a new federal data base reporters can mine for religion angles

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Here is a new federal data base reporters can mine for religion angles

On September 12th, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled its revamped College Scorecard (click here to see it), a trove of online data to guide parents and students on where to enroll that can also be a source of religion angles. The Obama Administration wisely scrapped its controversial plan for a college rating system, something of a mission impossible, and instead compiled hard numbers that citizens can judge for themselves.

The broad economic context was analyzed that same weekend by National Public Radio’s Adam Davidson, writing in The New York Times Magazine. For example, median income adjusted for inflation has remained nearly flat since 1974 while tuition at private universities has roughly tripled, and has quadrupled at public universities. Meanwhile those pricey college degrees have increased in importance for many careers. As the new Web site proclaims, “On average, college graduates earn $1 million more over their lifetimes than high school graduates.”

Much of this information was already available in those ubiquitous college guidebooks or the College Navigator site from the government’s National Center for Education Statistics. But the new site crunches Internal Revenue Service data to report graduates’ earnings 10 years out and how many are managing to repay student loans.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, the field’s journalistic bible, notes an important gap: Those newly added numbers cover only students who received federal loans or grants. Also, they lump together all students at an institution while earnings vary wildly depending on academic subject. The American Council on Education complains that the feds produced this setup without any review by outside experts.

No religious campuses are among the feds’ list of 23 schools commended for low cost leading to high incomes.


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