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The New York Times offers massive 'special report' on euthanasia -- that's full of holes

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The New York Times, whose approach to journalism is closely monitored by other media, has lately run quite a few articles in the main news section that sprawl across two or more pages, the sort of long-form, off-the-news features we expect in magazines, including the Times’s own magazine.

The paper’s December 8 Sunday edition included a mold-breaking innovation in this trend, a “special report” tabloid insert that ran no less than 44 pages. Headlined “The End,” it reported on the life and doctor-assisted suicide of Belgium’s Marieke Vervoort, a wheelchair-bound star athlete.

How the media treat such a contentious and emotion-laden ethical issue as euthanasia carries great cultural significance. Coverage will captivate most readers because anguish of families and friends over physical and emotional sufferings or end-of-life decisions is almost universal, though usually in less public and dramatic fashion.

The story in brief: Afflicted by a rare neuromuscular disease, Vervoort was wheelchair-bound by age 20, amid debilitating pain that robbed her of sleep. She turned to sports for some relief. Remarkably, she beat the reigning champion to win a sprinting gold medal at the 2012 Paralympic Games, becoming a nationwide celebrity, and won silver and bronze at the 2016 games,

Meanwhile, Belgium had passed one of the world’s most liberal programs for doctor-assisted suicide in 2002. Till then, Vervoort had never thought of killing herself.


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Religion news, the First Amendment and BBQ: GetReligion will soon have a new home base

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All together now, let’s sing: “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

GetReligion. org has been around since February 1, 2004, and in Internet years that is a long, long time. Some of us — certainly me — have gained more than a few gray hairs in the process.

For several years now, I have known that I would retire from full-time work here at GetReligion when the clock struck midnight and we reached January 1, 2020. The question — logically enough — was whether this weblog would shut down or evolve back into something that I could do part-time, which was how things started out long ago.

The good news is that, well, we ain’t dead yet. The bad news is that we will have to do some major downsizing, which means we’ll have to make changes in the amount of content that we offer here. After nearly a decade, Bobby Ross Jr., has already put out the word that he is leaving GetReligion and will now be writing a weekly religion-news roundup for Religion UnPlugged that will also run elsewhere (including here, we hope).

Readers will not be surprised to know that — a sign of the times in which we live — the work we will be doing here in the future will require some fundraising. Visitors to the website will see more information about that sooner, rather than later.

But the big news today is that GetReligion will soon have a new home base, one linked directly to the First Amendment, which means work tied to freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

As of January 1, we will be based at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, which is next door to the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi.


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Big story: How to properly cover laws regarding sex abuse and Catholic church bankruptcy

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It’s been 17 years since The Boston Globe published its groundbreaking series on clergy sex abuse.

Some two decades later, a political shift in state legislative bodies and fallout from the #MeToo movement have all collided to bring what many warn is a financial reckoning that could cripple the Catholic church in America.

It was more than a year ago — on November 28 to be exact — that I warned in a GetReligion post about how the church would be hit with a blizzard of lawsuits in 2019 and what a massive story it would be.

Here’s an excerpt from that post:

As the scandals — that mostly took place in past — continue to trickle out in the form of grand jury reports and other investigations, look for lawmakers to try and remedy the situation for victims through legislation on the state level.

With very blue New York State voting to put Democrats in control of both the state Assembly and Senate (the GOP had maintained a slight majority), look for lawmakers to pass (and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic, to sign) the Child Victims Act. The Empire State isn’t alone. Other legislatures in Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey and New Mexico are considering similar measures.

The New York legislation would allow victims of abuse suffered under the age of 18 to seek justice years later as adults. Removing the statute of limitations on cases involving private institutions, like the Boy Scouts and Jewish yeshivas, is at the heart of the battle.

New York did indeed pass the law — and may other states followed in its footsteps. In all, 15 states and the District of Columbia have changed their statute of limitations over the past two years in order to allow for lawsuits regarding rape and sexual assault allegations dating back many decades to be brought to court. In many cases, the offender is long dead.


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More Religion News Service turmoil as publisher Tom Gallagher makes a quick exit

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Well, that was quick.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Tom Gallagher, a corporate lawyer and columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, talked his way into a position as CEO of the Religion News Foundation and as publisher of its subsidiary, Religion News Service. He was someone who had friends in high places. The idea was that he was a fundraiser who’d bring religion news the money and respect that it deserved, plus he’d create the business model for a wildly successful nonsectarian producer of religion content.

Yes, he created havoc by firing or pushing out several people in order to do it (read my April 2018 story on that here), and he was making changes to how the RNF related to the Religion News Association, an independent trade association of religion reporters. (The RNF is its public charity arm.) I heard a lot of talk at the most recent RNA annual convention in Las Vegas about how Gallagher’s decisions helped drive the RNA into a $30,000 deficit.

But Gallagher remained the man on top — until now. He’s the person who’s squarely in the middle of the photo atop this post, which is a screen shot of part of the RNF board. He’s in the blue sweater.

Then yesterday, a press release popped up on the RNS website about its new interim leader, Jerry Pattengale, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University and an executive with the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. until he retired from the latter last year.

So Gallagher was out? By Tuesday afternoon, the RNF site had been altered to reflect new realities and Gallagher’s name was also off the RNS masthead.

That doesn’t sound like an amicable parting, does it?


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Breaking news: Man gives 10 percent of his income to charity — what a revolutionary concept

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Let’s not waste any time.

We need to get right to a recent scoop by Vox.

Here it is: According to the headline, a man has given at least 10 percent of his income to charity for 10 years running.

Yes, I know how amazing that must sound to everyone just hearing about it for the first time.

“What a revolutionary idea,” said one person (actually, lots of people) on Twitter.

“Huh,” suggested another. “If only we had a word for this. One syllable? Rhymes with Blythe maybe. I don’t know. Maybe this guy can invent the word.”

Great idea! I suggest we all think real hard and try to come up with such a word.

In the meantime, here is Vox’s lede:

Ten years ago, in November 2009, a philosopher at Oxford named Toby Ord set up an organization called Giving What We Can. His idea was to ask people to commit, with him, to donate at least 10 percent of their income every year to highly effective charities. Ord chose to donate to organizations working to fight global poverty.

This commitment, from a not particularly well-paid research fellow, earned Ord profiles at the time from the likes of the BBC, the Telegraph, and the Wall Street Journal.

Ten years later, over 4,000 people from a wide range of backgrounds — including hedge funders, prominent philosophers like the late Derek Parfit, 2019 Nobel laureate in economics Michael Kremer, and, uh, me — are on the list of signatories.

Ord is now a senior research fellow in philosophy at Oxford and has since cofounded the effective altruist movement with fellow philosophers Will MacAskill and Peter Singer. Giving What We Can is now part of a broader suite of organizations under the Center for Effective Altruism, trying to persuade people they can use their time and money to make the world a substantially better place by giving to good causes.

Alrighty.


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First in a series? Ambitious AP feature examines waves of stress hitting Catholic priests

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When covering complex, controversial subjects, the journalism educators at the Poynter Institute have long stressed the importance of paying attention to criticisms made by “stakeholders” linked to a story.

What’s a “stakeholder”? Basically, it is a person or group directly linked to the core issues and information included in a news story, people whose lives and work will be directly affected by this coverage.

That’s the first thing I thought about when I saw the ambitious Associated Press feature that ran with this headline: “US Catholic priests describe turmoil amid sex abuse crisis.” It’s an important article addressing a topic — waves of change sweeping over a declining number of priests — that would be hard to cover in a book-length report, let alone a newspaper feature.

What do the ultimate “stakeholders” — Catholic priests — think of this story?

As you would expect, the story had to find a way to focus — focusing special attention on the work of one priest who symbolizes larger trends. Thus, readers are introduced to the Rev. Mark Stelzer, a 62-year-old professor and chaplain at a Catholic college in Western Massachusetts who is also a recovering alcoholic who helps others wrestling with that demon. Now, he has been asked to serve as administrator at a nearby parish with 500 families. This brings us to the heart of this report:

Weighing on the entire Catholic clergy in the U.S. is the ripple effect of their church’s long-running crisis arising from sex abuse committed by priests. It’s caused many honorable priests to sense an erosion of public support and to question the leadership of some of their bishops. That dismay is often compounded by increased workloads due to the priest shortage, and increased isolation as multi-priest parishes grow scarce. They see trauma firsthand. Some priests minister in parishes wracked by gun violence; others preside frequently over funerals of drug-overdose victims.


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Vanity Fair on mad money, a video project for Jared Kushner and Kabbalah's influence on WeWork

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Vanity Fair’s headline for a nearly 6,000-word report on WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann is the perfect lure for any lover of the Godbeat. It draws from a remark by a former WeWork executive: “You Don’t Bring Bad News to the Cult Leader.”

OK, I’ll bite, but what type of cult leader is in the spotlight? Jim Jones led 918 people to commit “revolutionary suicide” in November 1978, but no CEO — not even Neumann — could persuade the 12,500 employees of WeWork in its prime to do likewise.

Gabriel Sherman, the wunderkind who reported extensively on Roger Ailes of Fox News, brings a comparable focus to the deeply ambitious entrepreneur and his wife, Rebekah Paltrow Neumann. Sherman writes as an aside that Newmann’s wife is a first cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow, and most of the details he provides about her suggests that the two cousins share a taste for holistic gimmicks.

The most amusing detail is that “Neumann assigned WeWork’s director of development, Roni Bahar, to hire an advertising firm to produce a slick video for Kushner that would showcase what an economically transformed West Bank and Gaza would look like.”

Sherman adds: “(Bahar told me he only advised on the video and no WeWork resources were used.) Kushner showed a version of the video during his speech at the White House’s peace conference in Bahrain last summer.”


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After all these years, what about 'Manny being Manny' in church? And in seminary? Tell us more

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Major League Baseball’s crucial winter meetings kicked off today in San Diego.

The first big splash of the big annual shindig came with the news that the World Series champion Washington Nationals have reached a seven-year, $245 million deal to retain star pitcher Stephen Strasburg.

According to a Texas baseball writer, that agreement makes it less likely that the Nationals will be able to afford their free agent third baseman, Anthony Rendon, who I’m hoping signs with my beloved Rangers. Stay tuned!

Speaking of baseball, I’ve been meaning to mention to a truly fascinating Boston Globe feature on Manny Ramirez. Ramirez, as you may recall, is the former Red Sox slugger who hit 555 home runs over an illustrious career marked by his temperamental personality and difficulty dealing with, um, people in general, including the press. By sheer stats alone, he should be in the Hall of Fame. But his connection to the game’s performance-enhancing drug scandal has kept him out of that shrine.

So, what’s compelling about the recent Globe interview with Ramirez?

Literally everything — starting with news that a contrite Ramirez has found God and is now preaching and attending seminary.

Let’s start at the top of Dan Shaughnessy’s column:

All these years later, Manny Ramirez wants you to know that he loves you and that he is sorry for mistakes he made while playing in Boston.

He is sorry he knocked down Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick over a ticket issue when the Sox were in Houston in 2008. He is sorry for the way he shot his way out of town and got himself traded to the Dodgers later that season. He is sorry he got popped for PEDs three times.

“It’s a mistake,’’ Manny said of his failed drug tests. “It’s like Barry [Bonds], Alex [Rodriguez], and everybody that was in that [Mitchell] Report. We made mistakes. I cannot go back and change it. I think it’s going to be good for young players to see what happened in that time. But when you’re good, you’re good. Those things don’t make you a better hitter.’’ …

Manny signed an eight-year, $160 million contract with the Red Sox before the 2001 season and made good on 7½ seasons of the deal. He was a latter-day Jimmie Foxx, good for about .312, 40 homers, and 120 RBIs every year. He was MVP of the World Series when the Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004. Paired with David Ortiz, he gave the Sox a Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig combo.

But he also was goofy. Fans loved it most of the time, but “Manny being Manny” sometimes triggered headaches for teammates, managers, and owners.

Go ahead and read the whole column for important context and background. But let’s skip ahead to the religion angle.


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Washington Post sends travel pro to Waco, producing feature with big God-shaped hole

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I am sorry, but I cannot resist another trip to Waco with a blue zip code travel writer.

Once again, I confess that my interest is, in part, rooted in my amazement that Waco has become a major player in Texas tourism. That’s still stunning news for me, as someone who called Waco home for my history/journalism undergraduate and church-state master’s work at Baylor University.

GetReligion readers — especially those in Texas or anyone with shiplap inside their homes — may recall that religion played a major role in the edgy coverage that I dissected here: “BuzzFeed moves in to fix up all those happy tales about Magnolia folks and their 'new' Waco.”

Now, the powers that be at The Washington Post have dispatched travel writer Andrew Sachs to the Heart of Texas to see what all of the fuss is about. The headline: “Waco, Tex., needed fixing. Luckily, Chip and Joanna Gaines had the tools.”

So, what could be worse that somewhat snarky sociological analysis that assumed fans of Donald Trump were hiding behind every oak tree in Waco and, certainly, at Antioch Community Church, the evangelical base for many of the people active in the Magnolia success story?

Apparently, someone at the Post decided that religion had absolutely nothing to do with the events unfolding in Waco and nothing to do with why millions of people are flocking there as tourists. The Gaines family has all the “tools,” but faith is not part of this big picture.

Let’s walk through this first-person travel piece looking for faith-based content. First, there is this:

After five seasons of “Fixer Upper,” Waco and the Gaineses seem as inextricably linked as New York City and “Queer Eye” (the original quintet, not the Atlanta remake).


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