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How scary is this? GetReligion critic joins us in opposing 'religious liberty' scare quotes

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Here at GetReligion, we've made no secret of our disdain for scare quotes on "religious liberty" and "religious freedom."

But I was delighted to see this week that Mark Silk, who writes the liberal "Spiritual Politics" blog for Religion News Service, has jumped on the bandwagon.

Now, if Silk's name doesn't ring a bell, he's most famous among your friendly GetReligionistas for writing a series of posts that he dubbed "GetGetReligion." I haven't seen such a post in a while, so I don't know if he's still trying to understand us or not. Hopefully, he hasn't decided to ignore us rather than flatter us with (negative) attention.

However, I come today not to question Silk's logic but to praise his astute take on scare quotes.

Just in case there's anybody not familiar with that term, here's how Dictionary.com defines scare quotes:

A pair of quotation marks used around a term or phrase to indicate that the writer does not think it is being used appropriately or that the writer is using it in a specialized sense.

And here's a big chunk of why Silk believes scare quotes have creeped into news coverage of religious liberty/religious freedom legislation and why he argues they're not the proper approach by journalists:


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If South Bronx Catholic church was a landmark, would state aid soon become controversial?

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If you have followed GetReligion posts about The New York Times in recent years, you may have spotted a pattern in our comments about its religion-news offerings.

When dealing with national-level stories, especially those linked to sexy, hot-button "culture wars" issues, the Times team has consistently served up one-sided stories driven by the advocacy journalism doctrines of what your GetReligionistas call "Kellerism." Surf this file if you have questions about the origins of that term.

But things almost always seem to change when run-of-the-mill religion news stories surface at the local level. Time after time, the Times Metro team has offered solid, detailed, meaty reports built on a wide variety of on-the-record voices. It's called journalism, folks.

However, what happens when a complex local story may -- I stress "may" -- have the potential of overlapping with one of those larger, sexier national stories?

Let me show you what I mean. The Times Metro team recently covered the kind of story that is happening more and more often in America's great urban zones. It's a story about efforts to save the facilities of a strategically located Catholic parish that is crucial to local residents, especially the poor.

But what happens if government officials get involved?

Thus, the headline: "A Bronx Church Where Landmark Status Would Be More Burden Than Honor." Here's the colorful, detailed overture:

The bronze doors of Immaculate Conception Church are always open during the day, a welcoming gesture to the surrounding Melrose neighborhood in the South Bronx. Decorated with figures of the Virgin Mary, the doors are graceful -- and heavy. “My main issue is trying to open them in the morning,” the Rev. Francis Skelly, the church’s pastor, said. “They keep me in shape.”
The bigger challenge is keeping them open: The parish is poor, and money for repairs and maintenance is tight. Twenty years ago, the church’s copper steeple had to be dismantled after pieces began to crash onto East 150th Street. It has yet to be restored because parish leaders have other priorities for the congregation’s 1,200 members -- most of them Latinos and immigrants -- who turn to it not just as a place to worship, but also for help with things such as citizenship classes and preparing tax returns.


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Need a new religion-related angle for Earth Day? Here's how to get started

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Need a new religion-related angle for Earth Day? Here's how to get started

If you pay attention to news about climate change you're undoubtedly aware that the warnings about the potential catastrophes facing human civilization are increasingly dire. I pay close attention to the subject and its clear to me that the warnings are coming in greater volume and getting ever-more threatening.

I'm crawling toward my mid-70s so I'm probably too old for the worst of the predictions to manifest fully during my lifetime. But I can't help but think that my children and certainly my grandchildren will experience climate events that could upend human life as we know it.

Just last week, for example, saw coverage that the massive ice sheets covering Antarctica appear to be collapsing faster than previously thought. That means a steeper rise in sea levels, which is terrible news for coastal populations worldwide. Click here to read how The New York Times covered the story.

Of course I'm aware that not everyone agrees about the reality of climate change or to what degree, if any, it's human-caused. But this post is not about arguing the issue's merits.

Like the preponderance of scientists who study the issue, I believe that climate change is a real threat and that the increased levels of atmospheric heat-trapping gases result directly from humanity's continued reliance on fossil fuels, in particular coal and petroleum.

Disagree? Think liberal media has blown the issue out of proportion? Say so in the comment section below. Give us some mainstream URLs for your facts and claims.


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Rocky Top, you'll always be good for a great debate on the Bible's place in Tennessee

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They're at it again in the Volunteer State.

A year ago, we noted Tennessee lawmakers' debate over whether to make the Holy Bible the official state book.

In that 2015 post, I suggested:

If a reporter just listens to both sides and reports what they say, this is one of those stories that almost writes itself — and, in the process, makes for pretty entertaining reading.

Welp.

I'm not so sure that journalists with national media outlets such as The Associated Press and the Washington Post got that memo. Take the AP coverage, for example. Mark Hemingway — former GetReligionista, senior writer for the Weekly Standard and, most importantly, husband of Mollie — passed along the wire service's report.

The subject line on Hemingway's email:

The snark in this lede ...

Uh huh:

Having already made a .50-caliber sniper gun the official state rifle, Tennessee lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to making the Holy Bible the state's official book.


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The Los Angeles Times on abortion: Does media bias bother anyone any more?

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Just over 25 years ago, the Los Angeles Times’ media writer, David Shaw, did a four-part series on media bias covering abortion. This landmark effort, by a reporter who didn't hide his support for abortion rights, took 18 months and involved 100 interviews with journalists and activists on both sides. It concluded that there was consistent mainstream-media bias favoring the abortion-rights side.

For an elite mainstream news publication to admit that fact was unusual, to say the least.

More than two decades and numerous court rulings later, the Times has come out with another package on abortion, but this time it’s an investigation into how the Center for Medical Progress did a lot more coaching with their undercover agents on how to get Planned Parenthood officials to make inflammatory statements than was first thought.

The Times had student journalists with an investigating reporting program at University of California at Berkeley help them with the research. It begins thus:

She was subdued and sympathetic on camera. Her recollections of collecting fetal tissue and body parts from abortion clinics in northern California lent emotional force to the anti-abortion videos that provoked a furor in Congress last summer.
In footage made public last July, Holly O’Donnell said she had been traumatized by her work for a fetal-tissue brokerage. She described feeling “pain ... and death and eternity” and said she fainted the first time she touched the remains of an aborted fetus.
Unreleased footage filed in a civil court case shows that O’Donnell’s apparently spontaneous reflections were carefully rehearsed. David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist who made the videos, is heard coaching O’Donnell through repeated takes, instructing her to repeat anecdotes, add details, speak “fluidly” and be “very natural.”


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Another journey into the hell of sexual abuse by priests: Two Altoona-Johnstown questions

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Trust me. I understand that it would be almost impossible to write a daily news report about the hellish subject of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy that would please all readers. However, someone has to do this work and do it well.

It's hard to talk about this story having "two sides," unless you get more specific about the actual topic of a given report. After decades of reading this coverage -- some of it courageous, some of it rather shoddy -- I think it's crucial for reporters to make it clear that there are multiple issues being discussed linked to these horrible crimes against God and innocent children and teens.

First, there is the issue of secrecy among high church officials. At this point, you will encounter few people anywhere in Catholicism who have the slightest interest in openly defending what cannot be defended. Maybe behind the scenes? If so, nail them.

However, this brings us to a more complex, and related, issue. How, precisely, should predators in the past be prosecuted and punished? The biggest issue is whether to lift the statute of limitations -- which imposes deadlines on when victims can bring civil suits or state prosecutors can press charges against alleged abusers. In some cases, lawmakers have attempted to target the clergy, alone, in these legal efforts, even exempting, to name one example, teachers in public schools from facing new accusations.

The second question is also linked to the prosecution of priests. Should it be assumed that accused priests are guilty until proven innocent, if that can be proven? How do reporters handle cases in which memories have faded, or the details in stories have become muddled?

With these questions in mind, let's look at today's report in The New York Times -- "As Pennsylvania Confronts Clergy Sex Abuse, Victims and Lawmakers Act." To my eyes, this is pretty solid. Still, there are two points at which I think editors should have added at least one or two sentences for the sake of clarity.


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Weekday think piece: Deseret News on why religion news is getting more important

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This is one of those cases where your GetReligionistas simply want to point readers toward an article and then get out of the way.

But first, let me note once again -- because of some reader emails -- what this whole "think piece" concept is about.

Our primary job here is to offer positive and negative critiques of mainstream media coverage of religion news and trends. But every now and then we see essays and op-ed page pieces that are directly linked either to work on the religion beat or they address topics that would be of interest to anyone who covers religion or cares fiercely about that craft.

That's when we send along a "think piece." No we don't have a logo for this yet.

In this case, the headline on this Deseret News article by Chandra Johnson said it all:

Why faith-focused media outlets and coverage matter now more than ever

Here is the overture:

As editor-in-chief of Religion News Service, Jerome Socolovsky understands the reasons behind the Boston Globe’s recent decision to cut its financial ties with Crux, its 18-month-old website dedicated solely to covering the Catholic Church.
Cutbacks of staff or types of coverage are common in newsrooms today, as is the lopsided nature of readership (Crux’s online audience was robust at about 1 million visitors a month) vs. revenue (not enough for the Globe to continue supporting it -- as evidenced from Globe editor Brian McGory’s staff emailannouncement).
But what Socolovsky hopes news consumers and other journalists understand is what they could lose if faith-focused coverage continues to dwindle.


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More on Mississippi religious liberty bill: Some views are more equal than others

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Can you endorse differences of opinion and reject them at the same time?

The Memphis Commercial Appeal did it in its look at Mississippi's new religious liberty bill.

The Mississippi bill, like the one Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia vetoed last week, would allow people to decline to perform certain services because of religious objections. The sponsoring legislators said it was prompted by the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

The Commercial Appeal news article, in its DeSoto County edition, doesn't leave you guessing its slant. Not when it gives the lede to someone who attacks the law:

Differences of opinion don't bother Kelly Harrison as long as they're just differences of opinion. When those differences potentially become a matter of life or death, that's another matter.
"If you don't want my money, I don't want to give you my money," Harrison, of Nesbit, wrote on her Facebook page last week. "But what if I or my family needed your service, life or death, and this could stop you from providing it without any worries? No matter how you paint this picture, it's discrimination."
Harrison was referring to Mississippi's "Freedom of Conscience" Act, a measure that would allow government employees or private business operators to cite religious objections as a basis to deny services to gay or lesbian couples. The bill, House Bill 1523, has passed in both legislative chambers and is on its way to Gov. Phil Bryant. The Republican governor said Friday he would look at the bill and decide what to do when it reaches him, but he has said he doesn't think it discriminates and has supported religious liberty bills previously.

Only toward the end of the article, BTW, does the newspaper reveal that Harrison and her mate are the first same-sex married couple in DeSoto County. She has a right to her opinion, but it's hardly an impartial one.


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What media coverage tells us about the (lack of) faith of 'Story of God' host Morgan Freeman

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A decade ago, in reporting on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I met a couple who survived the storm by escaping to their church's balcony.

This was the lede on the in-depth narrative feature I wrote on Charles and Angela Marsalis:

NEW ORLEANS — "Girl, you better get out of town!” 
Angela Marsalis’ mother made it clear what she thought her daughter should do that weekend as Hurricane Katrina — a Category 5 storm packing 160 mile-per-hour winds — threatened a direct hit on New Orleans. 
In a perfect world, Angela — a substitute teacher who helped each day with an after-school program at church — would have done exactly as her mother urged. She, her husband, Charles, and their boys would have joined the clogged procession of vehicles fleeing the tempest predicted to make landfall Monday morning.
But Charles — who worked 12-hour days on a tugboat yet still volunteered most mornings at a Christian outreach center — had just spent $2,000 to fix the family’s blue 2000 Dodge Caravan, wiping out their bank account.
Jittery over the calamity that could befall the bowl-shaped metropolitan area, Angela begged her husband: “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” 
But her practical side knew they lacked the cash to keep their gas tank full. They simply could not afford to heed the mayor’s mandatory evacuation order. 

Over the last 10 years, I've made repeated trips to New Orleans to update the Marsalises' journey (here, here and here, for example).

Now, the Marsalises are about to be featured on actor Morgan Freeman's "The Story of God," a six-episode series that premiered Sunday night on the National Geographic Channel. 


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