New York Times

Flashback to 1997: Times legend A.M. Rosenthal on press ignoring religious persecution

Flashback to 1997: Times legend A.M. Rosenthal on press ignoring religious persecution

The U.S. State Department churns out many newsworthy reports, a few of which make news while the rest vanish into circular files.

In July [1997], the state department finally released its first report on religious persecution in 78 nations. A spokesperson reminded reporters that it was Congress that mandated the 56- page document's emphasis on the persecution of Christians. The state department, stressed John Shattuck, doesn't view this "as more important than other topics involving religious freedom."

On Capitol Hill, critics noted that the report was six months overdue and came weeks after pivotal congressional votes on Most Favored Nation status for China. It created a few media ripples, then vanished. The Religion Newswriters Association did name the state department report as its eighth most important news story of 1997.

On Nov. 16, there was another newsworthy event – a global day of prayer on behalf of the persecuted church. About 8 million Americans in 50,000 Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations took part, pledging themselves to keep praying and to seek changes that would help persecuted believers.

This event received even less news coverage than the state department report. The end-of-the-year ballot mailed to religion-news specialists didn't even mention it.

"That's astonishing. It's quite depressing, actually," said retired New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal. "That state department report was nothing – it was a non-story. It was patched together out of old information and then they delayed it as long as possible to minimize its impact. The only reason that report even existed was because of the movement against religious persecution and all of the pressure it has been putting on Congress. That's the story."

The day of prayer was even perfectly timed to justify major news coverage.


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Did Islamic beliefs trigger the use of rape in Hamas attacks? If 'yes,' reporters should say so

Did Islamic beliefs trigger the use of rape in Hamas attacks? If 'yes,' reporters should say so

If the overture in a recent New York Times news feature doesn’t grab your attention, I guess nothing will.

The reality described here is the use of rape as a weapon of war — a weapon that is even more devastating in the age of GoPro cameras and social media. Rape has been used as a weapon in wars for centuries, in many different cultures, with many different excuses and justifications. In this case, it’s impossible not to ask questions about the role of religion in these war crimes.

The headline on this New York Times story is blunt: “Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” Yes, in this case many readers may have appreciated some kind of #triggerwarning about the content:

At first, she was known simply as “the woman in the black dress.”

In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes.

Many news reports are starting to pour out the details now — R-rated stories about sexual tortures that Hamas attackers inflicted on their hapless Israeli victims the morning of Oct. 7.

The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today produced stomach-churning stories of what a demonic hatred for Jewish women looks like. Which tells me there’s been some reporters with boots on the ground piecing all this together and sorting through the gory aftermath.

NBC News also produced a report on Dec. 5, much of it with blurred images because the reality was too graphic for the screen. Click on the link if you want some really graphic descriptions of what was done to these women.

The Times said their two-month investigation involved “video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors.”


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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

People who spend years riding commuter trains — Baltimore to Washington, D.C., for me — learn that there are community rules. For example: Don’t crack up laughing and make a lot of noise.

I violated that written law several times while reading a snarky, hilarious 2000 book by David Brooks called, “Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There.” The term “Bobo” was short for “Bourgeois Bohemians.”

But what is a religion writer supposed to do while reading its “spirituality” chapter, which ended with a vision of "Bobo Heaven.” Brooks offers a tweedy angel of death sentencing an urban lawyer to spend eternity in her chic, “green” summer house, with National Public Radio on every channel. Heaven or hell?

Readers who have been online lately will know where this is going, because of the multi-media firestorm ignited by his New York Times column: “On Anti-Trumpers and the Modern Meritocracy.” That Brooks essay provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s a sample:

The meritocracy isn’t only a system of exclusion; it’s an ethos. During his presidency, Barack Obama used the word “smart” in the context of his policies over 900 times. The implication was that anybody who disagreed with his policies (and perhaps didn’t go to Harvard Law) must be stupid.

Over the last decades, we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out. When I began my journalism career in Chicago in the 1980s, there were still some old crusty working-class guys around the newsroom. Now we’re not only a college-dominated profession; we’re an elite-college-dominated profession. Only 0.8 percent of college students graduate from the super-elite 12 schools (the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Duke and the University of Chicago). A 2018 study found that more than 50 percent of the staff writers at the beloved New York Times and The Wall Street Journal attended one of the 29 most elite universities in the nation.

Now, let’s leave Orange Man Bad out of this. I’d like to focus on the fact that Brooks has been writing about this phenomenon for several decades now.

As you would expect, I appreciated that Brooks dared to mention the ice-blue trends in elite journalism. I started paying attention to that in the late 1970s (hold that thought). However, I have to admit that I wondered why Brooks defined his meritocracy in terms of class (correct), zip codes (correct), resume credentials (correct), but — in this case — ignored the obvious religion themes in this drama.


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When writing about Iran, women and hijab, stress the Islamic roots of it all.

When writing about Iran, women and hijab, stress the Islamic roots of it all.

The female protestors in Iran have received a lot of positive press recently. Not only did they win Time magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year reader poll, they were also named the magazine’s 2022 Heroes of the Year.

Their bravery, even in the face of death — a number of them are being tortured and killed — has gained the attention of the world.

Recenty, the New York Times did a piece on how so many women are ditching their head coverings, the police aren’t bothering to arrest them. The issue here at GetReligion, of course, is whether journalists are coving the role that debates about specific Islamic traditions and laws are playing in all of this.

An engineer strode onstage at an event in Tehran, wearing tight pants and a stylish shirt, and clutching a microphone in one hand. Her long brown hair, tied in a ponytail, swung freely behind her, uncovered, in open defiance of Iran’s strict hijab law.

“I am Zeinab Kazempour,” she told the convention of Iran’s professional association of engineers. She condemned the group for supporting the hijab rules, and then she marched offstage, removing a scarf from around her neck and tossing it to the floor under a giant image of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The packed auditorium erupted in cheers, claps and whistles. A video of Ms. Kazempour went viral on social media and local news sites, making her the latest champion for many Iranians in a growing, open challenge to the hijab law.

Something has cracked wide open in the consciousness of Persian women.

Recently I’ve been fascinated by the refusal by Iranian women to wear head coverings. I’ve checked out Iranian activist Masih Alinejad’s “The Wind in My Hair” and Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh’s “Captive in Iran,” the latter about these two Christian women’s 259-day stay in Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison, to get a feel for what women experience in this sad and terrifying country.

Both give a snapshot of what it’s like to live in a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” society.


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Piecemeal coverage of Benedict XVI death reveals ultra-thin ranks of religion reporters

Piecemeal coverage of Benedict XVI death reveals ultra-thin ranks of religion reporters

The death of a pope is like a World Series Day for religion reporters, who know that whatever they write will show up on the front page — alongside whatever Associated Press dispatches come from Rome.

This time around, papal coverage was strung together with a collection of work by beat specialists, columnists, general assignment reporters dragooned into doing pope coverage and retired folks brought in for a one-off and Catholic insiders. As the religion beat has been eviscerated at so many outlets, media managers aren’t sure where to turn when a major story like a papal death comes up,

So, when word came out last week that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was rapidly failing, newsrooms quickly called in whomever they knew could whip up a re-telling of this fascinating man’s life.

The timing flummoxed publications that had come out early with their list of notable 2022 deaths, only to have to add not only Benedict but broadcaster Barbara Walters and Brazilian soccer king Pelé, both of whom also died in the closing days of the year.

Naturally I jumped at the chance to do something for Newsweek (I’m their religion correspondent), so I began perusing what was already out there. I found a wave of hatred and ill will in the secular media for this traditional Catholic leader.

Topping the list was a tweet — since deleted — posted by Politico cybersecurity reporter calling Benedict a “Hitler Youth alumnus” and “homophobic pedophile protector,” both of which were below-the-belt blows in that all German boys in the early 1940s were dragooned into joining Hitler Youth.

As for the latter accusation, it was Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who saw how bishops were passing the buck on pedophile clergy in their dioceses — which is why he ordered all cases of credibly accused priests and deacons sent to his office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so he could defrock these people. That was in 2001.


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New York Times pursues ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in massive story that raises (some) Jewish ire

New York Times pursues ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in massive story that raises (some) Jewish ire

The past week has been Jewish education week in the media as there were several stories that hit the fan all at once. We’re talking about:

* This Washington Post piece on New York state forcing ultra-Orthodox schools to teach secular subjects;

* This New York Times blockbuster — no other word for it — on how Hasidic Jewish schools are operating a network of madrassa-like institutions whereby students barely learn English, much less basic education staples such as history or math.

* The Jewish Telegraphic Agency on a decision by liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who ruled that Yeshiva University in New York City could — for doctrinal reasons — ban an official LGBTQ club/advocacy group on its campus.

The Times investigation is the behemoth of the lot, taking more than a year to compile and be published before the state’s Board of Regents votes today (Sept. 13) on whether a yeshiva’s (religious school’s) secular curriculum (such as it is) could be rejected by the state.

It was a massive amount of work in terms of plowing through public records, 275 people interviewed, tons of Yiddish documents translated and, according to Brian Rosenthal, one of the two lead reporters, it’s probably the first time the Grey Lady has published a Yiddish translation or a news report. Here’s the beginning:

The Hasidic Jewish community has long operated one of New York’s largest private schools on its own terms, resisting any outside scrutiny of how its students are faring.

But in 2019, the school, the Central United Talmudical Academy, agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students.

Every one of them failed.

Which was by design, the article continued, because these schools are meant to steep students solely in Jewish law and tradition in Yiddish-only surroundings to the point that many students never learn English, so find it impossible to get a job in the outside world.


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Angry about Roe, many journalists focus on crisis pregnancy centers as villains behind it all

Angry about Roe, many journalists focus on crisis pregnancy centers as villains behind it all

Before the overturning of Roe v. Wade a little more than a week ago, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) were considered by mainstream media to be the dregs of the pro-life movement, one of the last stories that anyone wanted to cover.

Now that abortion access is heading toward the deep-blue coastal regions with a few blue islands in the middle, a villain must be found. And voilà; the once despised CPCs are to blame for it all. Now, CPCs are worse than a non-story.

Apparently these places are pretty effective, judging from the editorial hate being poured down on them. They’re the bricks and mortar of the pro-life movement. Instead of reporting about how these CPCs — and the churches that tend to support them — have been defaced, set on fire or otherwise attacked, we have hit pieces like this Associated Press article about a “so-called” crisis pregnancy center in Charleston, WV.

The piece is so front-loaded with trash quotes from its opponents — with no rejoinder allowed from leaders or volunteers at the CPC itself — that you almost miss the story about the woman who visited the center back in 2014 planning to abort her child. She was (very reluctantly) dissuaded from doing so and now is “very happily” raising her 7-year-old son.

So, what’s the moral of this story? That this particular mother should have decided that this kid should be dead? The two reporters who did this disaster of a story don't want to go there.

Considering the invective tossed at these CPCs by places like Planned Parenthood, why aren’t reporters treating this more like a business story?

Like, the CPCs have outwitted the abortion clinics when it comes to figuring out what many pregnant women really want and it’s clear the abortion facilities have suffered financial losses as a result. How about asking people at the latter hard questions about the clients they’ve lost to the CPCs and whose bad marketing decision that was?

Hint: It might have to do with the free ultrasounds offered by the CPCs. Offering this service was a trend that began a decade or more ago and it really cried out for coverage.


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Blue states vs. red ones: Does the New York Times team get why the two are parting?

Blue states vs. red ones: Does the New York Times team get why the two are parting?

Recently I was talking with a friend who is homeschooling her daughter in the eastern part of Washington state, which is far more conservative than the Seattle area, where I live. She was agonizing over whether to return her child to public school.

She’s not afraid of Covid; Washington state was one of the most careful states on that score, and masks were mandated longer here than most other places. What she really feared was the state’s liberal sex ed law, passed when Covid was beginning to ravage the local population. Washington state was the first place in the nation to have Covid, but what was our governor, Jay Inslee, doing at the time? Pushing through a graphic sex ed curriculum. The floor debate on it went on until 2 a.m., as I described here.

A recall election to zero out the curriculum failed.

Which is all to say that when the New York Times ran a piece headlined, “New Laws Moves Blue and Red States Further Apart,” it didn’t mention some of the more obvious reasons why people are walking away. Guess what? Many of these reasons are linked to issues are linked to morality, culture and religion.

SACRAMENTO — After the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children, California lawmakers proposed a law making the state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.

When Idaho proposed a ban on abortions that empowers relatives to sue anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of patients from out-of-state.

The Idaho ban is slated to begin April 22, unless some federal judge knocks it down. Abortion clinics in Oregon, particularly Bend, are expecting a deluge, as the central Oregon clinic is the nearest one to Boise that has easy abortion access. (Other nearer cities, like Walla Walla, Wash., have a Planned Parenthood clinic, but that clinic doesn’t do abortions after 10 weeks. And clinics in Salt Lake City require a 72-hour waiting period.)


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Religion news 2021: Which story was No. 1? Return of Taliban or Jan. 6 riot at U.S. Capitol?

Religion news 2021: Which story was No. 1? Return of Taliban or Jan. 6 riot at U.S. Capitol?

For journalists who braved the chaos, the Jan. 6th riot on Capitol Hill offered a buffet of the bizarre -- a throng of Proud Boys, QAnon prophets, former U.S. military personnel and radicalized Donald Trump supporters that crashed through security lines and, thus, into history.

Many protestors at Trump’s legal "Save America" rally carried signs, flags and banners with slogans such as "Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my president" or simply "Jesus 2020." In this context, "Jesus saves" took on a whole new meaning.

Some of that symbolism was swept into the illegal attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In its poll addressing major religion events in 2021, members of the Religion News Association offered this description of the top story: "Religion features prominently during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. Some voice Christian prayers, while others display Christian or pagan symbols and slogans inside and outside the Capitol."

Consider, for example, Jacob Anthony Chansley -- or Jake "Yellowstone Wolf" Angeli. With his coyote-skin and buffalo-horns headdress, red, white and blue face paint and Norse torso tattoos, the self-proclaimed QAnon shaman, UFO expert and metaphysical healer became the instant superstar of this mash-up of politics, religion and digital conspiracy theories.

"Thank you, Heavenly Father … for this opportunity to stand up for our God-given inalienable rights," he said, in a video of his U.S. Senate remarks from the vice president's chair. "Thank you, divine, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator God for filling this chamber with your white light and love. Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ. …

“Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors within our government."

That was one loud voice. A big question that must be answered, in future trials and the U.S. House investigation, is whether it's true -- as claimed by the New York Times -- that the "most extreme corners of support for Mr. Trump have become inextricable from some parts of white evangelical power in America."


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