, , ,

Surprise! An abortion story from a major newspaper that doesn't favor pro-choice side

, , ,

Last week, we highlighted — once again — the slanted nature of so much mainstream media reporting on abortion.

We suggested that not much has changed since the classic 1990 Los Angeles Times series -- written by the late David Shaw -- that exposed rampant news media bias against abortion opponents.

We pointed out that among Shaw's findings a quarter-century ago were these:

* The news media consistently use language and images that frame the entire abortion debate in terms that implicitly favor abortion-rights advocates.
* Abortion-rights advocates are often quoted more frequently and characterized more favorably than are abortion opponents.

Why do I bring up that recent post again now?

Because I wanted to share a positive example of how journalists who want to provide impartial coverage can do so. This story, from the front page of Tuesday's Oklahoman newspaper in Oklahoma City, concerns a prayer vigil conducted by Catholic opponents of a planned abortion clinic.

 


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

News in the 2015 Southern Baptist statistics: Baptisms, babies and crucial ethnic churches

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

As you would expect, reading the Religious News Service story about the continuing decline in Southern Baptist Convention membership statistics is rather different than reading the Baptist Press feature on the same trends.

This is exactly as it should be, since one is a secular wire service and the other is a denominational press office. However, it's interesting to note that neither of these stories buried the bad-news lede and both included interesting secondary issues that could point toward important news angles in the future.

Truth is, the slow decline of the SBC is several news stories rolled up into one.

Let's look at the very short RNS story first, starting with the hard-news lede:

(RNS) The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the country, but it continues to lose members and baptize fewer people each year.
The latest statistics, compiled by LifeWay Christian Resources from church reports, show membership has dropped by more than 204,000, down 1.3 percent to 15.3 million members in 2015. It’s the ninth year in a row there has been a membership decline. Baptisms, which have declined eight of the last 10 years, totaled 295,212, a 3.3 percent drop, researchers said Tuesday (June 7).

So what is happening here? For starters the RNS report notes that another doctrinally conservative denomination -- the charismatic Assemblies of God -- experienced some growth in 2015.

This raises questions about the "Why?" element in this news story.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

New York Times tackles the complex story of Saudi Arabia spreading influence and problems

, , , , ,
New York Times tackles the complex story of Saudi Arabia spreading influence and problems

Soon after I started contributing to GetReligion last year I posted a piece that ran under the headline: "Do American newspapers have the time, space and patience to cover Saudi Arabia?" I concluded that more meaningful coverage of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), as the petroleum-rich monarchy is formally known, was needed for Americans to better understand the Middle East's interrelated array of serious problems.

I'm sure my post has nothing do with it, but I'm pleased to now write that The New York Times in recent months has published a series of probing, in depth stories on the KSA that should be required reading for all.

For religion and international affairs reporters in particular, Saudi Arabia is a critically important story to follow. That's because if for no other reason, global Muslim terrorism is a deadly, ongoing phenomenon that has no end in sight.

And guess what. The KSA's brand of deeply conservative Islam known as Wahhabism is one reason for this brutal chaos.

Journalists should learn all they can about the kingdom's exportation of Wahhabism throughout the Muslim world, including its influence on the Islamic State (ISIS), Al Queda and other jihadi groups.

The Times is as well positioned as any elite, international newspaper -- and, seriously, how many are in its league to begin with? -- to report the breath of the KSA's often negative impact on global affairs.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

Plant. Face. Palm. Did Facebook team say Jesus is buried in Church of the Holy Sepulchre? (Updated)

, , , , , , , ,

Just what we need, another controversy involving Facebook and its "trending" news feature, which is apparently important for legions of social-media content consumers.

But in this case, I really need to ask, "Can I get a witness?"

What I mean is this: Does anyone out there in cyberspace have evidence -- perhaps a screenshot or a URL in a way-back storage program -- to back up those #bangingheadondesk items about an alleged Facebook "trending" story that ran with this headline?

Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Renovations Begin on Site Where Christians Believe Jesus Is Buried

Oh my. And we now have an update from a reader! We have a screenshot.

Now that we have that taken care of, let me note that the principalities and powers at Facebook headquarters can take some comfort in the fact that they are not the first folks in journalism to make that error.

Some of you might remember a 2014 item on this here weblog that ran with this headline: "Revenge of GetReligion MZ: Concerning the NYTimes effort to bury Jesus."

That post focused on an MZ piece at The Federalist in which she dissected a New York Times travel feature that, while focusing on life and commerce in Jerusalem's Christian Quarter said:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Town fighting transgender bathrooms has rattlesnakes and cougars. What about religion?

, , , ,

Until late last month, I'd never heard of Harrold, Texas. Maybe you hadn't either.

The tiny town near the Oklahoma border burst into the headlines recently when it joined Texas and 10 other states in challenging the Obama administration's directive that public school bathrooms, locker rooms and showers must accommodate transgender students.

My GetReligion colleague Jim Davis made brief mention of Harrold when he critiqued initial media coverage of the lawsuit.

The early reports — which included brief mentions of Harrold with a quote or two from the town's superintendent — made me curious. I wanted to know more about the little community and its role in the bigger fight. 

Apparently, I wasn't alone.

The Associated Press sent a reporter to Harrold and got firsthand color such as this:

Kindergarteners and high school students in Harrold share 10 bathrooms in a single brick schoolhouse that is shorter than the football field, where the Harrold Hornets play six-man football because there are not enough players for 11. A few times a day, a train rumbles past the schoolhouse. Superintendent David Thweatt says "hobos" sometimes jump off and wander toward campus. Once, he said, a drifter holed up in a school bus and left a smell that took days to air out.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Washington Post offers one-sided (positive) look at conservatives who oppose death penalty

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

As a life-long opponent of the death penalty, I have attended my share of prayer gatherings and rallies on this issue and other issues linked to it. That final clause -- "and other issues linked to it" -- is crucial.

What I have learned is that, in contemporary American life, there are basically two groups of people who are opposed to the death penalty.

The first group is made up of political progressives who oppose the death penalty and that's that. The second group (which would include me) consists of pro-life religious believers -- left and right -- who oppose the death penalty as well as legalized abortion, euthanasia and other life issues. The goal in this camp is to consistently apply a standard that all life is sacred, from conception to natural death.

In my experience, it's relatively rare to see mainstream press coverage of this second group, especially coverage that discusses the role that faith and doctrine plays in this stance. So I did a double-take the other day when I saw that Washington Post headline that proclaimed, "Meet the red-state conservatives fighting to abolish the death penalty."

Yes, this piece by New York magazine writer Marin Cogan is labeled "opinion." However, it's about as newsy as 80 percent of what runs as hard news in major newspapers today.

Let me confess that this is, in effect, a "Kellerism" piece that just happens to support a cause that floats my own boat. If you are looking for fair, accurate arguments in favor of the death penalty then this is not the piece for you. However, I wanted GetReligion readers to know about it because it does a pretty good job of handling faith-based material, while dealing with a group of believers that rarely gets much news coverage. So why an "opinion" piece?

Here is the overture:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Are Christians paying enough attention to religious-liberty issues for Muslims?

, , , , , , , , , , ,
Are Christians paying enough attention to religious-liberty issues for Muslims?

At the end of the Obama era, conservative U.S. Christians are expressing more worries about their religious liberties than they have for a very long time.

Yet devout Muslims face their own challenges. So journalists might ask Christian strategists whether these rival religions might unite on future legal confrontations and, right now, whether they support Muslims on, say, NIMBY disputes against mosques, while also asking Muslim leaders about Christians’ concerns.

As Christianity Today magazine editorializes in the June issue, the U.S. “will be stronger if people of faith -- not just of Christian faith -- are free to teach and enact their beliefs in the public square without fear of discrimination or punishment by the government.” 

This story theme is brought to mind by two simultaneous news items.

On May 24 the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a federal bias complaint about Muslim workers at Wisconsin’s Ariens Company, which makes snow blowers and lawn mowers. Christian Science Monitor reportage said Ariens granted two daily breaks from the assembly line for required Muslim prayer times but some workers needed three. After negotiations fizzled, the company fired seven Muslims and 14 others quit.

On May 25, the education board for Switzerland’s Basel canton, with teacher’s union support, rejected appeals to exempt Muslim students from the expected daily shaking of teachers’ hands out of respect. The New York Times said the board acknowledged that strict Muslims believe that after puberty they shouldn’t touch someone of the opposite sex except for close relatives, but hand-shaking doesn’t “involve the central tenets of Islam.”

Both incidents show ignorance of, or lack of respect toward, Islam.

Since 1997, CAIR has published pamphlets by Mohamed Nimer of American University that inform schools, employers and medical facilities about the Muslim view of practical issues, for instance:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

For Ramadan, Miami Herald shuns complex coverage for pro-Muslim promotion

, , , , ,

As surely as Easter brings news stories questioning the Resurrection, the arrival of Ramadan can be expected to bring exactly the opposite -- news reports that are essentially pro-Muslim marketing. And a new four-story package in The Miami Herald returns to that stale script:

Muslims are nice people and good Americans. Muslims are just like the rest of us. Terrorists are not really Muslims. Muslims are persecuted.

Let me stress: Not that any of those points are invalid.

As a religion writer for a daily newspaper, I interviewed a lot of Muslims who were happy as Americans and horrified at what was being done in the name of their faith. But to take essentially the same angle featured in so many newspapers for so many years is, by definition not news -- it's more like PR or image management.

We should have gotten better after that the Herald spent several months with four families on this package, resulting in a total of 3,435 words and three videos (which, unfortunately, aren’t compatible with GetReligion's software platform).

What appears to be the mainbar bears all the above clichés, leading with the persecution:

Yasemin Saib was filling bags with rice for a Feed My Starving Children event when she rolled out a mat and began to pray. A man interrupted her, asking her what she was doing.
"I’m praying," Saib said.
"To Jesus?" he demanded.
A few weeks earlier, the Cooper City school of her 7-year-old son was vandalized, with the words "F--- Muslims" splayed across a wall in bright red letters. "We live in frightening times in the United States," Saib said. "I can say that as an American Muslim."
Schools defaced. Stares on airplanes. Shouts of "Go Home’’ -- this is life in 2016 for many American Muslims. An anti-Muslim mood fueled by 9/11 has reached a throbbing crescendo after Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, called for a "total and complete shutdown" of U.S. borders to Muslims in the wake of December’s San Bernardino terrorist attack.

"Throbbing crescendo." How did that phrase get past the editor? That might work for the New York Post, but not for a once-world class daily.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , ,

Muhammad Ali death coverage: No one spells out how Islam forbade him to go to war

, , ,

After Muhammad Ali died Friday at the age of 74, many of the laudatory retrospectives on his life talked about Ali’s refusal to be drafted in the Vietnam War because of his Muslim beliefs. He took this stance at the prime of his boxing career, and his career never recovered from his forced four-year sabbatical from the sport.

Knowing what we do know about the Islamic State group, Al-Qaida, the Sunnis and the Shiites and the state of war the Middle East has been in — on and off — since 9/11, the idea that someone would refuse to fight because he’s a Muslim is so 20th century. And, if there’s any religion that’s been involved in warfare during this present century, it’s Islam. Was Ali, then, the earliest ambassador of Islam as the "religion of peace?"

Let's review: When Ali refused being inducted into the U.S. Army on April 28, 1967, conscientious objection to Vietnam was in its infancy, and his decision was criticized by even baseball great Jackie Robinson as hurting the morale of black soldiers fighting in Vietnam. 

I've read lots of recitations about Ali’s refusal to fight. But other than saying the boxer was refusing on the grounds of his religious beliefs, I've not seen any explanation of which beliefs those were. The Atlantic comes closest to bringing up the question but does not answer it:

In April 1967, Ali refused to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War and was charged with draft evasion, resulting in a five-year prison sentence—he remained free pending appeal—and a large fine. The World Boxing Association stripped him of his heavyweight title, and Ali was effectively cast out of the boxing world in his physical prime.


Please respect our Commenting Policy