O ye gods! WPost blazes trail in AP heresy (updated)

May 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

A reading, according to the Stylebook of the Associated Press.

Let us attend.

gods and goddesses Capitalize God in references to the deity of all monotheistic religions. Capitalize all noun references to the deity: God the Father, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, etc. …

Lowercase gods and goddesses in reference to the deities of polytheistic religions.

Lowercase god, gods and goddesses in references to false gods: He made money his god.

That is a pretty clear set of guidelines, methinks.

Thus, I am trying to imagine the conversation at The Washington Post copydesk that led to the following religious reference in a short news report about the amazingly quick political comeback by former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford (which Bobby addressed just yesterday). Here is the context:

The former governor beat Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert Busch, for the state’s 1st congressional district. …

In remarks at a victory rally Tuesday night, Sanford tipped his cap to Colbert Busch and her team for a “well-run race.” But the campaign, he said, “was based on two very different ideas on what ought to come next in Washington.”

Sanford also sounded a spiritual note in his address, thanking “god’s role in all of this,” and calling himself an “imperfect man” who was “saved by god’s grace.”

Say what? Saved by the grace of “god”? Which polytheistic or false god might that be?

But here is the crucial question, worthy of contemplation by the Post desk that works on corrections: Does this represent some kind of opposition to the AP gospel? That’s the question that amazed, or at least amused, conservative scribe Marvin Olasky of World magazine:

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Atheists & Agnostics, Evangelicals, Journalism, People, Politics Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment

God’s role in Mark Sanford’s redemption story

May 8, 2013 By 9 Comments
YouTube Preview Image

God — and South Carolina voters — decided Tuesday to give disgraced former Gov. Mark Sanford a second chance.

At least that’s the impression left by news coverage of the state’s most famous adulterer, who won back his old seat in Congress with 54 percent of the vote.

The war-size headline on the front page of The State in Columbia, S.C.:

SANFORD WINS REDEMPTION

The Associated Press used a similar headline:

MARK SANFORD REDEEMS CAREER, HEADING TO CONGRESS

God figured heavily in Sanford’s victory speech, with Yahoo News! noting that Sanford said he wanted to “publicly acknowledge God’s role in this.” (God was unavailable for comment, and I can’t say I blame him.)

I am pretty certain Sanford was referring to God’s alleged role in his election victory — as opposed to a role in Sanford carrying on a secret affair with an Argentine mistress, to whom he’s now engaged after his divorce from the mother of his four children.

Here’s how AP quoted Sanford way up high:

“I am one imperfect man saved by God’s grace,” the Republican told about 100 cheering supporters Tuesday after defeating Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to win back the 1st District seat he held for three terms in the 1990s. “It’s my pledge to all of you going forward I’m going to be one of the best congressmen I could have ever been.”

Later in the story, AP included more religious language from the former governor:

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Journalism, People, Politics, Religion, Sex Tagged With: , , , , , 9 Comments

Media continues to ‘Gosnell’ abortion coverage. Why?

May 8, 2013 By 4 Comments

YouTube Preview ImageThis blog played a bit of a role in highlighting Gosnelling, the media practice of ignoring or downplaying politically inconvenient abortion news (see, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). It wasn’t great prior to that incident, but the mainstream media has an even worse credibility problem when it comes to reporting on abortion news. So I’d hoped we’d see some efforts to improve it.

And we are. There has been, for instance, some media coverage of the abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell’s trial, which is currently in the phase of jury deliberations. Today the jury requested to have a transcript of one testimony re-read to them and while that’s happening, reporters from Reuters, Fox News, the Wilmington News-Journal and CBS News are present. It’s not where it should be, but it’s a start.

But what about the larger picture? How is that being covered? While abortion rights advocates and many in the media have suggested that Gosnell is an extreme outlier, pro-life media keep uncovering more and more stories that suggest the mainstream media is failing to highlight. It’s not that there’s no coverage, again, there is. Kirsten Powers wrote in a recent USA Today column about the “drumbeat” of clinic closures and links to media coverage are provided:

Last week, Ohio officials shut down an abortion clinic after inspectors found that a medical assistant administered narcotics to five patients, that narcotics and powerful sedatives weren’t properly accounted for, that pharmacy licenses had expired and that four staff members hadn’t been screened for a communicable disease.

This month, a Delaware TV station reported that two Planned Parenthood nurses resigned in protest over conditions at a clinic there. One nurse, Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, said, “It was just unsafe. I couldn’t tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was.”

Last month, Maryland officials shut down three abortion clinics, two for failings in their equipment and training to deal with life-threatening complications.

Last year, an Associated Press investigation found that Illinois hadn’t inspected some abortion clinics for 10 to 15 years. After state health officials reinvigorated their clinic inspections in the wake of Gosnell, inspectors closed two clinics, including one fined for “failure to perform CPR on a patient who died after a procedure,” according to AP.

But there’s a difference between a prominent media critic connecting the dots here and a news report that does the same. You’ll note the difference between how the media drumbeat is hit for a cause such as, say, gun control and a cause such as abortion clinic control. The disparity is immediately apparent and difficult to explain on journalistic grounds.

Or I pointed out a few weeks ago how no angle was too small to cover when the media obsessed over the Komen Foundation’s decision to stop funding the country’s largest abortion provider. Compare that with the media downplaying every fresh angle on the Gosnell coverage, this just being today’s latest example.

Today, the conservative publication National Review has published a harrowing and lengthy expose of abortion clinics in Florida. It is a brutal read, but very important journalism. Here’s how National Review promoted it:

Jillian Kay Melchior exposes the so-called doctors, clinics, and the women affected, at these Florida abortion clinics. This is a must-read article that details the callous lack of humane practices and a brutal alleged infanticide. In Abortion’s Underside:

  • Three Florida clinics with a disturbing history of criminal activity continue to operate — and there’s little the law can do to stop them, raising alarming questions of the safety and standards inside abortion clinics in America.
  • The doctors employed at the clinics have shady malpractice histories, and some were not licensed to practice medicine.  
  • Witnesses say a baby was born alive and then murdered, but no one was ever successfully prosecuted for her death.

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Politics, Social Issues, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Hey! So who is calling the new pope ‘unorthodox’?

May 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment
YouTube Preview Image

So, a faithful GetReligion reader was working his way through a story printed by The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., when a most unorthodox turn of phrase reared up and slapped him in his Catholic face.

The story focused on the fact that the sudden death of the local Catholic shepherd, Bishop Joseph McFadden, was going to provide Pope Francis his first opportunity to oversee the full process of selecting a new diocesan leader.

The outcome would offer the experts another opportunity to see what makes this pontiff tick, in terms of church doctrine and tradition. Thus, in that context, the story noted:

A few weeks ago, Francis marked the 50th world day of prayer for vocations by ordaining 10 men to the priesthood to serve in the Diocese of Rome.

Francis, who is widely considered a reformer, has received early criticism in some circles for his lack of doctrinal orthodoxy. He has selected eight cardinals to find ways to reform the Church.

Now wait just a minute!

Yes, there are people who have raised questions about the new pope’s less formal approach to liturgy, especially in comparison with the very traditional Pope Benedict XVI. But very few Catholics have raised their criticisms to the level of doctrine. In terms of his actions in the past, Francis has been a very solid Catholic on issues of morality and doctrine.

What was going on here? Didn’t the team at The Patriot-News realize it was making a very, very serious accusation?

Thus, Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz sent a note to the reporter in question (while also copying your GetReligionistas). The note said, in part:

In your article headlined “Naming successor to Bishop McFadden: For Pope Francis it will be a first of sorts,” you stated the following: “Francis, who is widely considered a reformer, has received early criticism in some circles for his lack of doctrinal orthodoxy.” I would like to know who has made that criticism. I read widely in Catholic circles and I have yet to see anyone criticize him for lacking doctrinal orthodoxy. I have seen him criticized because of how he conducts his liturgy and because he has put aside many of the trappings of the papal office, but to my knowledge, no one has said that he lacks doctrinal orthodoxy.

You may not realize it, but that’s a huge statement. For a pope to be unorthodox in doctrine would be huge news.

To the newspaper’s credit, the story was quickly tweaked — with a correction at the end.

Thus, if you visit the newspaper’s website to read that particular story, this is what you will now find:

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Catholicism, Godbeat, Religion, World Religions, Worship Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment

So, what do Southern Baptists have to do to get some ink?

May 7, 2013 By 1 Comment

A couple of years ago the Southern Baptist Convention explored the option of changing their name to better reflect the national and international nature of the denomination. I thought at the time that it might be helpful to change the name to the “The Episcopal Church” so that the national news media would finally acknowledge the massive SBC’s existence.

Well, tmatt once offered some helpful theories for explaining why Episcopalians get so much ink by the elite press, but I’ve yet to hear a reasonable explanation why America’s largest non-Catholic flock is all but ignored.

A prime example is a story that has — so far — only been picked up by one mainstream media organization, The Tennessean in Nashville, the city in which the SBC headquarters is located:

Two Southern Baptist leaders said Monday that they reject conspiracy theories that the U.S. military will punish Christian soldiers who share their faith.

But they are worried about religious freedom in the military.

Kevin Ezell, head of the Baptist’s North American Mission Board, which endorses military chaplains, and Russell Moore, president-elect of the Nashville-based Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, issued a statement Monday about religious freedom in the military.

The full statement (which can be found at the Baptist Press news site) offers a number of hooks for reporters who are late writing about the story that was discussed in churches and on military bases across the country.

The fact that such sober-minded, media-friendly and thoughtful Baptist leaders as Kevin Ezell, president of the SBC’s North American Mission Board, and Russell Moore, president-elect of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, felt compelled to write about this issue is a signal that there’s a story out there that needs some calm, nuanced, informed reporting.

What, for instance, are the conspiracy theories they’re attempting to debunk?

If you’ve been following Smietana at The Tennessean you’d know.

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Baptists, Evangelicals, Mainline, Religion, Social Issues Tagged With: , , , , , 1 Comment

Back to the Bible, with hot shot Stephen Curry

May 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment
YouTube Preview Image

Hello all of you GetReligion readers who are totally into sports! I am sure, at this time of year, you are really getting into the NBA playoffs.

If you are, then that means you cannot believe what you are seeing whenever the mad gunner Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors takes the court. This young man is on fire.

Curry is also one of the most visible religious believers in basketball and that has in the past led to some interesting problems for mainstream sports reporters. For example, back in his March Madness days with tiny Davidson College, one Associated Press report noted:

On the red trim at the bottom of his shoes, Stephen Curry has written in black marker, “I can do all things.”

Yes, yes he can. And because of him, Davidson is marching on.

Now, the implication was that Curry — as a statement of confidence, if not outright ego — was saying that he could do whatever he wanted to do whenever he stepped onto a basketball court.

It was safe to say that the AP team did not recognize that this Christian kid was making a biblical reference that, as interpreted by most active Christians, could be seen as a statement of humility — precisely the opposite of the spin the AP put into that story. You see, there is every reason to think that Curry’s sneaker quotation referred to the New Testament, specifically to Philippians 4:13, which states:

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

You think?

Now, I bring this up once again because GetReligion has, in recent weeks, spotlighted a few — click here and then here, for starters — mainstream press references to scripture that, like that 2008 gaffe about Curry, missed the mark when it came to accuracy.

Thus, I wanted to note a recent ESPN essay by superstar scribe Rick Reilly in which he got the Curry-loves-scripture thing right. Just to set the tone, here is the opening of that piece during the earlier Warriors playoff series:

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: People, Radio & TV, Sports Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment

Buddhism and horse-race politics

May 7, 2013 By 1 Comment

Campaign journalism is a favorite of reporters and readers alike. I am not a fan, finding the horse-race coverage to be frustrating. But with just one campaign of national interest right now, it’s bearable.

The Associated Press reports:

It’s now up to voters render a verdict on former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s quest for political redemption, as one of the more unusual political campaigns in a state known for rough and tumble politics draws to a close.

Sanford, once mentioned as a potential GOP presidential contender, saw his political career disintegrate four years ago when he disappeared for five days, telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He returned to admit he had been in Argentina with his mistress – a woman to whom he is now engaged.

Sanford later paid a $70,000 ethics fine, the largest in state history, for using public money to fly for personal purposes. His wife Jenny divorced him.

Now Sanford is trying to stage a political comeback by winning the 1st District congressional seat he held for three terms in the 1990s when the conservative coastal district had a somewhat different configuration.

The race has had quite a few ghosts in it, what with Sanford’s public moral failings. He faced a tough primary and his entire campaign was walloped with the recent news that he’d trespassed on his ex-wife’s property, in violation of their custody arrangements.

And yet, somehow, he’s actually still a contender. Today’s election day, so we’ll know more soon.

So, what does this have to do with GetReligion? Well, tons of campaign reporters are down in South Carolina covering the race and I rather enjoyed Yahoo News’ update from the road (literally!):

Between stops around town, Sanford ditched his campaign driver and started hitching rides with reporters. He asked to ride in Yahoo News’ rental car and we zoomed off toward the next event. On the way, I asked him about his unorthodox campaign tactics. After all, Sanford was meeting only a couple people at each stop. The entire exercise seemed grossly inefficient.

“My view is, bigger the crowd, the fewer the votes,” Sanford said. “If you can just keep moving as an individual and you’re present–I don’t want to sound Buddhist on you–but you’re in the moment. You’re present with them, you actually can have a real conversation. You can talk about issues that they like, what they don’t like, in a way that you can’t if you have a crowd.”

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Evangelicals, Politics, World Religions Tagged With: , , , , , 1 Comment

Problems with today’s press? Religion is No. 1

May 6, 2013 By 1 Comment

After a busy Pascha weekend, I need to jump back into the tmatt file of guilt for a moment or two.

You just know, with a single glance at the title on this essay, that dozens of GetReligion readers were going to clutch the mice to the side of their keyboards and forward this piece to us quicker than you can say, “The press … just doesn’t get religion.”

It helps that the byline — Carl M. Cannon — belongs to a man known as a top-rank White House correspondent. In other words, he gets politics which means that, among elite journalists, he’s important enough to opine on other lesser topics — like religion.

And then, of course, there was that headline:

The Problem With the Press, Part 1: Religion

Cannon opens with the by now well-established reality that journalism — primarily the advertizing wing of the enterprise — is in crisis. If the advertising doesn’t work then the whole business model doesn’t work. And then, from that sobering note, Cannon leaps straight to this point (with a time reference that suggests Dr. Kermit Gosnell, and perhaps one M.Z. Hemingway, are on his mind):

… (C)overage of religion in the mainstream media — and of the faith-tinged issue of abortion — has revealed that our journalism model is also broken. Most dispiriting of all, the recent coverage suggests that economic pressures are making the problem worse.

Despite the presence of the occasional pious Catholic, observant Jew, or devout Protestant, American newsrooms have long been highly secular places. This is as it should be for a mass circulation audience in a pluralistic society. But political and cultural polarization in the past generation has exacerbated the great spiritual divide between journalists and those we cover.

Although the number fluctuates, some 40 percent of the American people describe themselves as evangelical Christians. Yet in traditional U.S. news organizations, print or broadcast, such believers are a rarity. The news coverage tends to reflect this disconnect. Evangelicals are often dismissed, particularly in political reporting, as exotic; or, worse, as a menace to civil society.

Traditionally, the people covering religion knew what they were talking about, at least. And presumably, they exerted a leavening influence inside their newsrooms. But Biblical literacy isn’t necessarily a requirement for that beat anymore; meanwhile, newsroom budget cuts have decimated the ranks of the nation’s religion writers.

What’s he talking about?

[Read more...]

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Announcements, Journalism, Religion, Sex, Social Issues Tagged With: , , , 1 Comment