When is it OK to burn Islamic texts?

Last updated on: January 29, 2013 at 11:37 am By mollie

We’ve been critiquing the good and bad coverage of what’s been happening to Mali in recent months. The latest news is about how fleeing Islamists destroyed a library in Timbuktu. Here’s the Associated Press: SEVARE, Mali – Fleeing Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said Monday, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali’s fabled desert city. Ousmane Halle said he heard about the burnings early Monday. “It’s truly alarming that this has... Read more

Super Bowl week: Sun misses the Spirit in AP Stylebook

Last updated on: January 28, 2013 at 4:15 pm By tmatt

News flash: This may be a shock to GetReligion readers, who are quite cool as a rule when it comes to caring about sports, but America is currently moving into the secular holy season known as Super Bowl Week. News flash No. 2: This is a rather big deal in Baltimore this time around. It is almost impossible to grasp, unless you have lived in a city with a Super Bowl team, how completely super news takes over a local... Read more

Savvy PR firm scores NYTimes coup against March For Life

Last updated on: January 28, 2013 at 10:04 am By mollie

We’ve received quite a few complaints about the religion angle the New York Times chose for its story on the March For Life. And I’d sure as heck like to join in. But before I do that, I want to point out that the Times also ran a straight news story covering the march and, unlike any year I can recall, it actually ran in the print edition and not just as a brief mention on a blog post. The... Read more

Foot-long subs vs. March For Life

Last updated on: January 28, 2013 at 4:23 pm By mollie

The Associated Press has a Twitter feed with nearly 1.6 million followers. Those followers received two tweets about a gun control rally and march in Washington, D.C. this weekend. “Gun control march in Washington to feature Newtown residents, pastors, parents and survivors of gun violence,” read one. “PHOTOS: Thousands march for gun control on National Mall in Washington,” read another. Considering the relatively small size of the march (Some said “nearly 1,000.” Others, as noted above, said “thousands.”), it makes... Read more

How to write a bland story about the March For Life

Last updated on: January 27, 2013 at 5:14 pm By tmatt

As expected, the journalists at The Washington Post were pretty careful with their coverage of this year’s March For Life. As I wrote the other day, in a challenge to GetReligion readers: I would imagine that the Post team will be rather careful in its coverage this year, after receiving rather stark criticism from its own reader’s representative. I predict some photos and even videos that capture the size of the crowd. I expect quotes from the young women who... Read more

Kwanzaa, Manti Te’o and respect

Last updated on: January 26, 2013 at 2:43 pm By mollie

I enjoy reading other media critics and ombudsmen, (er, ombudspersons?) and thought about discussing this recent take on Kwanzaa coverage by NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos. He updated the post today and it gives me an opportunity to show it to you, too. You can read the initial column (“Gaining Or Losing Credibility By Humanizing A Reporter: A Kwanzaa Story“) for analysis of how NPR covered Kwanzaa on a couple of different programs. The focus of the analysis is how a... Read more

Pod people: Finding gold in the religion reporting dross

Last updated on: January 26, 2013 at 7:01 am By geoconger

The newspaperman’s art of rubbishing someone, while appearing professional and even-handed was the principal object of my harrumphing in this week’s Issues Etc. podcast. Host Todd Wilkin and I discussed two of my recent GetReligion posts concerning the BBC’s coverage of the anti-gay marriage march in Paris and the Sydney Morning Herald‘s coverage of the Australian government’s commitment to preserve religious freedoms for religious entities under a future Bill of Rights. Todd opened the show with a question about media... Read more

Time for the “March for Life” media debate (updated)

Last updated on: January 25, 2013 at 1:39 pm By tmatt

It’s that time again — time for the annual debate about media bias in mainstream press coverage of the annual March For Life. This has been going on for ages. When I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in the early 1980s, many of the media-bias studies that I read — studies done by both critics and defenders of the press — included questions about media coverage of abortion. As the years have passed, March... Read more

Is Christian Zionism off the NY Times radar?

Last updated on: January 25, 2013 at 9:24 am By geoconger

Comments given to an American church audience in 2011 by an Israeli rabbi, who stood for election this week to the Knesset on the Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) ticket were a one-day wonder over the weekend in the Israeli press. Atlanta-native Jeremy Gimpel was lambasted by the liberal press in Israel for allegedly calling for the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim mosque built atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to be destroyed and replaced with a new Temple. The controversy... Read more

BBC probes Johnny Cash’s vague interest in redemption

Last updated on: January 24, 2013 at 12:14 pm By tmatt

The late Johnny Cash was a lot of things at the same time, which has often left journalists a bit confused about the sources of his remarkable passion and creativity. For starters, the man ended up in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. I think that covers most of the bases. Did I miss a... Read more