People

Salman Rushdie says, “Get religion”

April 26, 2006 By tmatt

usa trenholm 01 Salman Rushdie is not, of course, a conventionally religious man. During the recent Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing he went out of his way to call himself a “dreadful old atheist.”

Nevertheless, Rusdhie — with very good reason — seems to “get religion.” You might even say that influential Muslims still want him to “get religion” in such a way that he has an opportunity to discuss the concept of blasphemy with the Almighty face to face, sooner rather than later.

Listening to a press copy of his Calvin address, I was, however, struck by his emphasis on the powerful role that religion plays in the life of real people living in the real world, even if they are living according to beliefs that Rushdie does not share. Much of his discussion was of India, his homeland. However, he also makes it clear that he is also talking about modern America (in the age of Bush, in particular) and the vast majority of the world’s nations and cultures (taking a lovely little shot at the low-grade mush of The Da Vinci Code, along the way).

In this address, Rushdie was discussing the work of novelists.

However, I thought his words might also sound as a sobering warning to journalists. Thus, here is a large chunk of the Scripps Howard column I filed this morning.

Please consider this material a kind of “thoughts for the day” offering:

As a writer, Rushdie said that he has always insisted on treating religion as a “normal part of life.” Thus, his goal was “not to give it special treatment, not to hedge it around with the language of taboo and respect because that has always seemed, to me, to be anti-intellectual.”

However, skeptics have their own way of avoiding the truth when dealing with intensely religious cultures, he said. Even writers who are unbelievers must realize that almost everyone in a land like India believes in one god or another and views life through the lens of that faith. Skeptical writers who refuse to accept this reality are practicing another form of intellectually dishonesty.

Rushdie does not, of course, believe writers should surrender their right to deal with religion in an irreverent or critical manner. However, he stressed that skeptics must be willing to doubt their own doubts and remain open to the possibility that the believers may, in some mysterious way, be right.

After all, he said, the real world is not completely realistic. Ordinary people believe in miracles and their beliefs are considered normal. Even in modern America, real life contains moments that are utterly surreal.

“So the sense that the miraculous and the mundane, that the supernatural and the everyday, coexist in a completely natural way, is everywhere,” he said. “The idea that, somehow, these are separate categories of thing is quite alien. So if you are going to write about that world, you have to take cognizance of that fact. You have to recognize that this is how people think.”

In other words, even devout skeptics need to “get religion” if they want to write about reality in this day and age. Do you think we should we ask him for a quote for our blog’s masthead?

Filed Under: First Person, Godbeat, Islam, People, World

Can I get a witness?

April 24, 2006 By mollie

Did you all catch Frank DeFord’s rather pretentious defense of sportswriting in the Washington Post Book World Sunday? I love Frank DeFord and listen to him all the time on NPR and watch him on (the best sports show out there) HBO’s RealSports with Bryant Gumbel. I also love sportswriting. I’ll never forget the transformative experience that was reading Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes while on a transcontinental flight.

But not only did DeFord violate my rule against more than one French word in a paragraph, he told too many too-perfect stories. He acts like sportswriting is some derided ghetto when most folks think that the sports pages have the liveliest writing in newspapers across the land. Case in point is the Washington Post‘s Mike Wise and his excellent analysis of Nike’s new ad campaign that uses religious ideas to sell shoes:

At the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church on Quincy Avenue, on the fringes of East Cleveland, the guest minister’s voice rose with fervor on Sunday morning.

“We worship at the cathedral of entertainment,” warned Peter Matthews, “where athletes and rock stars are high priests and high priestesses.”

The pastor looked prescient if you drove 15 minutes toward downtown. An entire building’s facade is dedicated to a black-and-white mural of LeBron James. The basketball is held aloft like a torch pointed toward the heavens.

“We Are All Witnesses,” reads the most visible symbol of Nike’s ad campaign for James, Cleveland’s 21-year-old wunderkind, the NBA’s best young player since Magic Johnson.

The intersection of sports and religion is an area not mined enough. Last year Thomas Herrion, the offensive guard for the 49ers, collapsed and died after a preseason game. His casket was draped not in a baptismal pall but in a blanket with his team logo. And not that it ended well, but I found it interesting that stranded New Orleans residents were told to find sanctuary in the Superdome. Dell deChant, a professor of religion at the University of South Florida, has written a bit about the religious role sports play in our culture. Wise provides examples of the intersections:

Sports Illustrated christened James “the Chosen One” when he was 16 years old, which explains the large tattoo on his back. He also goes by “the Golden Child,” and “King James.”

The unabridged version, of course.

LeBron is not coached as much he is “shepherded” by Mike Brown. LeBron also did not lead the Cavs to the playoffs for the first time in eight years. No, he took them to the promised land.

The Cavs team store is not yet selling nativity scenes with Bron-Bron in a manger, but it’s only April.

Nice. The piece is enjoyable and thoughtful. And largely because of Wise’s original reporting — in a church no less! I wish more non-Godbeat reporters would see the value in considering the religious stories in their areas of coverage.

Filed Under: Books, Journalism, People, Pop Culture, Social Issues, Sports

Hume gets God; Howie sort of gets Hume

April 21, 2006 By tmatt

Brit hume fnc Because I am one of those people — cultural conservatives who go to church all the time — many of my friends in academia and journalism assume that I watch Fox News.

Actually, I don’t like Fox News at all, for many of the same reasons that I don’t like other television news shows in prime time. I am not, as a rule, interested in celebrities, spectacular murder cases, tiny political soundbites and 90-second reports on complex medical issues. I also prefer to get my entertainment news from a wide variety of print sources. I like information.

So I don’t watch Fox News, but I do watch Brit Hume and his Special Report quite a bit, especially the first 40 minutes or so in which he basically covers hard news with that dry style that somehow lets you know that he knows more than he is letting on. It’s a news show, not a star vehicle. I am vaguely aware of his political views, but, frankly, not to the same degree as I am when I am watching most TV news stars. Once he was a liberal, now he’s a conservative, and he’s still a journalist.

I bring this up because the official voice of the Washington media establishment — Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post — did a profile of Hume the other day (there’s an obvious topic that should have been done a long, long time ago, don’t you think?) and discovered that there is a major God role in the anchorman’s story. Read the piece and you will see that this element of the story — a family tragedy and a rebirth of faith — is the turning point.

But Kurtz is not sure what do to with it. It seems to get in the way of his political analysis. Check this out:

Hume, like his network, has clearly become a lightning rod in a polarized media environment. Hume is almost evangelical in his belief that he is fair and balanced while most of the media are not, an argument challenged by several studies showing that his program leans to the right.

Hume is no partisan brawler in the mold of some of Fox’s high-decibel hosts. By virtue of his investigative background, his understated style and his management role, he represents a hybrid strain: conservatives who believe in news, not bloviation, but news that passes through a different lens, filtered through a different set of assumptions.

Note the presence of that interesting word “evangelical” floating around in there. Yes, I know the meaning of that word in that context. But Kurtz always has a way of letting you see what he is thinking. The story goes on to show that Hume is actually very centrist in his news work and quite respected. I think what Howie is trying to say is that Hume believes his work is, in large part, more centrist than the left-leaning mainstream in TV news.

But the heart of the story is linked to the 1998 death of Hume’s 28-year-old son, Sandy, a journalist with The Hill newspaper, Fox and other outlets. Here is that section of Kurtz’s report:

On Feb. 22, Sandy Hume killed himself with a hunting rifle in his Arlington apartment. He had been arrested the night before for driving under the influence, had tried to hang himself in a D.C. jail cell and was released after being evaluated in a psychiatric hospital.

“It’s a moment of truth when you realize what you believe,” Hume says. “I realized I believed in God.” He had been “a fallen Christian,” Hume says, but “it was such a devastating loss I was thinking, ‘How in the world am I going to get through this?’ I had this odd thought that I would get a phone call: ‘Brit, this is God.’ I had this idea that somehow I was going to be okay and God was going to rescue me.”

03 1123 JPG Clearly, this is a key part of the story and Kurtz either has to go deeper or simply mention it and then back off. There is a chance, of course, that Hume did not want to discuss this in depth and I think everyone can respect that choice.

Still, as a religion reporter, I was left wanting to know one or two facts that may not have been too private. Kurtz hints at something with the “evangelical” reference and then, later, makes a reference to a specific tradition in Roman Catholicism — Mass cards.

Was Hume racked with parental guilt? “It was a great help to me that I’d had a very good relationship with (his son). I didn’t have to live with a lot of regrets about how we’d gotten along.”

Within six weeks, he had received 973 Mass cards. “I cannot tell you how buoyed I felt,” Hume says. “I thought, this is the face of God. I just got on with my life.” Hume now struggles “with trying to make Washington political journalism consistent with an effort to lead a Christian life.”

Now there is an interesting story, one that could lead in all kinds of different directions.

As an Orthodox Christian who has worked and taught in Washington — to one degree or another — for more than a decade, I know that there are many Christian believers who are committed to journalism careers in this town (no matter what some on the Religious Right think). I also know that some are liberal and some are conservative. I also know that many are, with good reason, hesitant to talk about their faith because they worry that others will say this is a handicap in mainstream journalism.

It is hard to dig into a man’s faith. I know that.

Still, I wonder if we could have learned a few basic facts. Is Hume an evangelical or a Catholic? Is a strong faith community a part of his strategy for staying sane in Washington journalism? Is Kurtz hinting that faith is that “different lens” through which Hume views the news? Would it be possible — without “outing” anyone — to know who some of the other believers are (other than Fred Barnes, obviously) who share his commitment to faith, family and to the craft of the news?

There is a story in there.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Journalism, People, Radio & TV

Does God need good PR?

April 19, 2006 By dpulliam

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine carried a relatively in-depth profile of Larry Ross, dubbed as possibly “the top public relations man for Christian clients in America.” The premise of the article (which goes along the lines of “Why does Jesus Christ need a publicist?”) is thought-provoking, and one that I’m sure came easily to the author, Strawberry Saroyan (author of Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir).

In introducing the question, Saroyan compares Mother Teresa’s need for a lawyer with the need of Rick Warren, and the entire Kingdom of God, for the help of public relations. “Why does God need someone to sell him?”

That’s a good question, but is Ross really trying to sell God? How about selling the earthly creation that is the church? I know most reporters have this image of public relations officials, especially the type you can hire for a buck, as sellouts and willing to represent anyone at the price, but this is not always the case.

In the nearly 5,000 words devoted to the subject, Saroyan fails to consider that while Ross has been behind some of the biggest Christian-themed moneymakers in the last few years and has directed big-budget marketing campaigns, the most basic need of those he represents is someone with the time and ability to explain their message to journalists who often have a poor understanding of religion.

If successful Christian leaders, preachers and evangelists are to use the mass media to spread their message, modern PR is necessary for the job. One can argue that, as Christians, they should be humble and not seek the spotlight. However, drawing 30,000 members to a congregation is bound to attract media attention. The following paragraph is a great example of this angle:

But Ross seems to be mostly at peace with his role and described it to me one afternoon this way: after invoking a biblical story about Moses’ engagement in a lengthy battle for the children of Israel, he said: “Moses stood there on top of a cliff, and as long as he held up his arms, the children of Israel won. Well, after a while he got tired, so there were two men that came and held up Moses’ arms so they could win the battle. That’s my job — to hold up the arms of the man of God, like Billy Graham or Rick Warren, in the media.” But his eyes really lighted up when he moved onto another topic — the press reception Graham received during his New York crusade last June. “He ended up doing 15 interviews, including all the major talk shows,” Ross told me. “At the press conference itself we had 250 journalists.”

Saroyan seems to think that pastors should be unwittingly put before the media horde, free to stumble over explanations of ecclesiastical language and possible fire and brimstone. Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs:

Perhaps the most intensive training that Ross offers is his “media and spokesperson” sessions. These can last as long as two days and usually include several mock interviews, which are taped. Ross encourages his clients to engage the media, but he wants to prepare them for worst-case encounters, so he administers tough questioning. To loosen clients up, he shows them an old “Bob Newhart” episode in which a talk-show host suddenly turns on Newhart. “It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen,” Ross says. He advises clients to avoid ecclesiastical language when addressing the mainstream (“Somebody talks about the Holy Ghost or the Army of God — that sounds like a revolution and it’s coming out of Iran,” says Lawrence Swicegood, who has worked for Ross and [Mark] DeMoss) and to use metaphors because they stick in people’s minds. Toward the end of a session, Ross looses a “bulldog” interrogator, a role played these days by Giles Hudson, a former writer for the Associated Press, who poses questions ranging from financial queries to “Do homosexuals go to hell?” “Obviously not,” Hudson says is a good response to this challenge. “Each person has their own relationship to Christ. People don’t just go to hell because you’re an alcoholic.” Sometimes Ross and Hudson add a separate, ambush interview. After taking a “break” from a session with Promise Keepers, Ross’s team confronted its president in the reception area, camera crew in tow.

So am I in favor of PR consultants walling off their clients and keeping them from the unfriendly media folks? No, not at all. I deal with those types in my day job. The goals Ross seems to have put before him in his job are not blocking information, but rather spreading information about Jesus Christ, which is a core tenet of being a Christian. This message came through clearly in the article, and for that Saroyan deserves praise:

Ross takes pains to distance himself from the more unsavory associations with publicists. Once he playfully asked me, “So, where would a P.R. man fit on the social scale between used-car salesmen, lepers and incurable lepers?” But he also tries to serve his two masters fairly. When he was working with “The Early Show” at CBS during a Graham crusade in 2005, he was approached by “Good Morning America.” He recapped the incident for me: “Their ratings are significantly higher, but I said, ‘I have to tell you, we’re here with CBS, and we have to honor the fact.’ I feel dutybound. It’s not enough to do things right — we have to do the right thing.” Ross also said he is attuned to the spiritual needs of his colleagues in the media. On one occasion he spoke to a producer from a network newsmagazine for six hours, answering her personal questions about Christ. “We have people who come to the crusades to report the story and put down their pens and microphones and commit to God,” he said.

Finally, I believe Saroyan nailed it in explaining Ross’ “near-refusal to acknowledge anything other than the glowingly positive” as a tendency of Christians to not “want to let on to anything negative because they fear it will reflect badly on God.” Sadly, I’ve found this to be true in my own experience. It’s one thing to want to keep the Church from being unfairly criticized in the media, but it’s another thing to attempt to cover up its spots and blemishes.

Filed Under: Evangelicals, First Person, Godbeat, Journalism, People, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, Social Issues

Scientology birthing “controversy”

April 13, 2006 By dpulliam

I have a fairly low tolerance for celebrity “news.” I especially disdain with the greatest disgust the current rage regarding celebrity childbirth, as if it were the latest fad or cool thing to try out. And I do not have any sympathy for those birthing the babies (I do feel great sorrow for the babies). The celebrities thrive off celebrity and need it to keep their careers afloat, as much as it is degrading to humanity.

So when I stumbled across this Associated Press story on the religion page of washingtonpost.com about the birthing plans of Katie Homes and Tom Cruise, I was miffed. What does this gossip piece have to do with religion?

Other than the issue of Scientology — and how it “controversially” forbids any noise during a birth — the article is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo Hollywood gossip (for more debate on whether Scientology is actually a religion, click here):

Tom Cruise has been practically shouting from the rooftops about his love for his pregnant fiancee, Katie Holmes. But when their much-anticipated baby is born, the superstar dad probably won’t say a word.

Cruise, a longtime Scientologist who introduced Holmes to the faith, is likely to follow Scientology’s practice of quiet birth. Followers believe the absence of talk and other noise in the delivery room is more healthful for mother and baby.

No one’s saying publicly where baby Cruise will enter the world, but if it is at the actor’s Beverly Hills home then noise control might prove a challenge. Buzzing paparazzi are already camped aside the property.

With the little one expected soon, tabloids and gossip Web sites have been rife with chatter about silent birth, spawning much speculation about what it is and isn’t.

The article fails to cite official Scientology authorities, but relies on a “self-professed ‘Scientology mom’” who was quickly contradicted by actress Anne Archer, a 30-year Scientologist who denounced the silent birth speculation as “ridiculous.” Scientologists apparently like to see their children brought into an “environment as calm, quiet and loving as possible.” Isn’t that just peachy. Archer added that “any culture in the world would understand that and any woman who’s given birth would understand that.”

Give me a break. Every culture? All women? Of course I can’t speak for women, or for the cultures of this world, the way Archer can, so I’m going to move on.

The article reads like a press release for the greatness of Scientology. Not that I see anything controversial about keeping a room quite while a baby is born, but if you are going to examine the subject, please talk to more than a few Scientologists and a Beverly Hills obstetrician, whose best comment was “You’re not going to yell at the patient. You may talk to them in a calming fashion and the patient will gain comfort from hearing your voice.”

I’ve only been present at one birth in my life (my own, 24 years ago), but I’m guessing that yelling at a woman giving birth is a bad idea.

How about examining the scientific claims behind L. Ron Hubbard’s writings that said infants should not be touched, spoken to or cleaned for the first 24 hours after birth? Or that mothers should not talk to their kid for 24 hours?

Do Scientologists still believe that today? I’m just dying to know. Oh wait, I really don’t care. Keep these stories to the gossip pages, washingtonpost.com.

Filed Under: Journalism, People, Pop Culture, Religion, Social Issues

Martin Peretz gets religion

April 12, 2006 By dpulliam

Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, must read GetReligion. I always know, when I read a piece by Peretz on the Middle East, I will be getting and honest and knowledgeable assessment on the conflict, but I wasn’t aware of his ability to grill a public figure for incoherent comments on religious matters.

I found one of his most recent blog posts, on the comments of presidential wannabe and already-run Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as quoted in a recent New York Times article, to be quite impressive. Kerry said that “not in one page, not in one phrase uttered and reported by the Lord Jesus Christ, can you find anything that suggests that there is a virtue in cutting children from Medicare.”

Peretz, doing my job, ripped into Kerry:

I’d actually go Kerry one further: I doubt that Jesus ever mentioned Medicare at all. Still, it’s probably significant that some presidential aspirants — Kerry, for one — want to demonstrate that there are among them some real live Democrats for God. Or, as the Times said about him, he is “A Roman Catholic, who has struggled at times to talk about his own faith … Mr. Kerry also told the group that he believed ‘deeply in my faith’.” Now, there are many Catholics including high ecclesiastics who doubt this. But who am I to have a point of view on what is essentially an intramural fight? In any case, as it turns out, Kerry is not only a Roman Catholic but also an ecumenicist.

Kerry also said the Koran, the Torah, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had influenced a social conscience that he exercised in politics. To this Peretz said:

[L]et me ask: What hadith of the Prophet influenced him the most, and why? And here I have a personal interest: Which of the injunctions of Leviticus and who among the Prophets have the most meaning for him? Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn’t ask such personal questions of a politician. In the spirit of Jesus, Kerry will certainly forgive me for doing so.

Sure Peretz is being somewhat picky, but that is what we do here. Those who know religion must critique public figures invoking religious themes and historical analogies. While I would expect a reporter writing about such comments to ask probing questions and dig into the subject instead of merely rewriting what was said, I realize that is not always going to happen for a variety of reasons. That’s why we’re here, and it’s comforting to know that others are helping us out with the job.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Journalism, People, Politics, Religion, Social Issues

It does sort of look like a clerical collar

April 8, 2006 By tmatt

Oreo Trans Fat Suit12may03 I’m sorry to return so quickly to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, but I do live in Maryland only a few miles up the highway from Annapolis. Thus, the new James Taranto profile of the controversial GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate caught my eye.

That candidate, of course, is Michael Steele, the state’s 6-foot-4 African American lieutenant governor who, during the 2002 campaign, the Baltimore Sun editorial board slapped with this dismissive phrase — he “brings little to the team but the color of his skin.”

You may remember that Steele is the public official who had Oreo cookies (you know, black on the outside, white on the inside) tossed at him during a public appearance. And then there was that flap about the liberal wing of the blogosphere and the infamous headline “I’s Simple Sambo and I’s running for the Big House.”

Taranto’s profile makes it clear that Steele is a rather complex man, with economic and social views that are not hardcore GOP. But he is a moral conservative. He grew up as a Democrat and his emotional tie to the party of Ronald Reagan formed, Steele explained, because he heard the Gipper affirming the basic moral values of his mother.

But you know there had to be more to the situation than that. Sure enough, this appears to be yet another “pew gap” story.

Taranto does not spotlight this angle, but it is hard to miss this reference in a story about a political life that bridges the Roe era.

(Steele) earned a degree from Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, spent a few years studying at a Catholic seminary, and eventually settled in Prince George’s County, Md., where he became the local GOP chairman and later state chairman. If Mr. Steele is a Reaganite, he is not a doctrinaire right-winger. On several issues he takes what seem to be liberal positions, though he explains them in terms that a conservative can appreciate. He opposes capital punishment, he says, “because I’m pro-life.”

In other words, Steele is Catholic and is serious enough about his faith that, as a young man, he actively sought the priesthood. That would make him a poor fit in the Libertarian wing of the Republic Party. But it would make him a heretic in the modern Democratic Party. Ask the once pro-life Jesse Jackson, who in 1977 wrote in National Right to Life News:

“It takes three to make a baby: a man, a woman and the Holy Spirit. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?”

So there is the religion ghost in the Steele story up here in Maryland. I will watch the local newspapers to see if this element of the story gets any ink. A quick search at the Baltimore Sun site turned up very little, in terms of recent coverage on this angle of one of the biggest stories in state politics.

Surely I missed something. I’ll keep looking.

Filed Under: Journalism, People, Politics

Does the Couric story have legs?

April 7, 2006 By tmatt

hc couric Well now, it seems that I was not alone in thinking that the Katie Couric announcement was a landmark event or even a sea change for the network nightly news shows.

People want to know: Is this the triumph of infotainment? Is this an open admission that someone needs to create the left-wing Fox News?

I freely admit that I am all but alone, so far, in connecting the Couric bias issue to religion and the lightning-rod issues that go with it, such as abortion rights, euthanasia and the redefining of marriage. Most people on the right prefer to say that she is merely biased, period.

Again let me stress: I am not saying that Couric is anti-religion. She is not “secular.” She merely clashes with traditional forms of religion.

Truth is, I have met very few secularists in American life (although their numbers are growing, as stressed in that Atlantic Monthly “Tribal Relations” piece that I keep urging GetReligion readers to consume). The issue is Couric’s long history of pouncing on culture-war issues while letting her freak flag fly (to paraphrase David Crosby, one of my favorite oldie musicians).

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal (source of the line drawing) summed up the bias story this way: Couric’s rise buries the idealistic claim that news anchors can serve as neutral voices in the public square.

In days past, whatever we suspected about their leanings, anchorpersons felt compelled at least to pose as disinterested reporters of “the way it is.” Ms. Couric dropped that veil long ago. The list of her utterances and leading questions posted on the Media Research Center’s fretful Web site … may not fully represent the range of her opinions and peeves. Unless she’s a total fake on camera, though, there’s little doubt about where Katie stands across the great red-blue divide. Democrats and their pet causes get tender respect; Republican and “conservative” policies get introduced in terms of the alleged threat they represent to our great nation.

Arguably, it’s better to know this and be done with the illusion of true neutrality. There are so many information outlets available now that alert consumers can choose to avoid newscasters whose judgment they don’t trust or shows with an unwanted political slant.

Here is the more interesting question to me: Do liberal or progressive viewers actually want perky Couric as their official voice on moral and social issues? I mean, don’t you think it’s rather hard to see her sitting in one of the top chairs at PBS or NPR?

This is that gravitas issue that people keep writing about, and there is more to this than her age, gender and decades of loyal mass-media service to pushing pop culture, fashion, parades, sports bras and fad diets.

I mean, Couric is a liberal’s liberal. But do the liberal consumers want to embrace her? Is she one of their best and the brightest? Hey, all of you ordained mainline women: Is Katie a winner for you? All of you professors in cutting-edge women’s studies departments: Do you care if CBS puts Katie behind a desk that displays her legs? Do you mind if she walks around on a set, while the men are displayed more modestly? Does any of this matter, so long as she keeps the faith on sexual revolution issues?

Filed Under: Journalism, People, Pop Culture, Radio & TV