I was at a meeting of a journalism fellowship program I’m part of this weekend. We heard from Sam Feist, CNN’s DC bureau chief. So, earlier in his career, he’d written some copy for the on-air talent to read for that night’s show. The line was something like “Clinton believes that the tax bill will pass.” The guy who was supposed to read the line — he happened to be an old-school journalist with little time for silliness — excoriated... Read more
Inside the ultimate Beltway, everyone is talking about Ohio. Which is why I am surprised at how The Washington Post has decided to play a very interesting political-ad story from that crucial swing state. Of course, the Post team also deserves some credit for publishing the story in the first place, even if the A4 location, with no art, is a bit on the strange side given the report’s explosive content. By the way, where is The New York Times... Read more
Le Figaro, Le Monde and Libération are France’s newspapers of record, the Presse de référence. While the national edition of Le Parisien, Aujourd’hui en France, may have a larger circulation, I believe that these three best represent the voices of the French establishment: Le Figaro, the center right, Le Monde the center left, and Libération the left. Yet French newspapers, like the French, are different from their American counterparts. The New York Times’ mantra “all the news that’s fit to print” which... Read more
Some of the world’s most important religion-news stories are also the hardest for your GetReligionistas to write about because they happen over and over and over. Are we supposed to do a post a week on some of these topics? Criticize the same holes in mainstream stories again and again? It’s hard. Trust me. Take, for example, coverage of human-rights stories linked to life in majority Muslim lands — especially stories linked to the persecution of religious minorities. The key... Read more
Conservatives had quite a bit of fun with a Reno Gazette-Journal article that was originally headlined: Fluke Takes Center Stage In Reno The caption for the photo of Fluke that ran underneath the headline but before the copy said: Sandra Fluke, a social justice advocate and campaign surrogate for Democratic President Barack Obama, speaks in Reno on Saturday. Now, it turns out that taking “center stage” in Reno means that 10 (ten!) people showed up in the parking lot of... Read more
I got that headline from an interesting discussion at the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s University School of Law. Odd question, right? Well, not so much. Before we look at the media coverage of the case that inspired the discussion, let’s quickly discuss the case. The Nwadiuko family petitioned a New York Court to legally change their name to “ChristIsKing” — one word with capital a C, I & K as the start of each internal word.... Read more
Friends and neighbors, the whole media world continues to buzz with news (me too, of course) about the “Nones,” that growing coalition of religiously unaffiliated voters that showed up big time in that recent survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. This was an important survey, don’t get me wrong. It was also a survey that was packed with interesting angles — many of which get dissected in some depth in this week’s GetReligion podcast — so... Read more
The Washington Post’s front page today featured a long profile focused on the faith and religious underpinnings of former Virginia Gov. — and current U.S. Senate candidate — Tim Kaine. The top of the 2,700-word story: It’s not unusual, on an election-year Sunday, to find a white candidate in a black church. But Tim Kaine, swaying this month to the gospel groove at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in a poor Richmond neighborhood, wasn’t on the campaign trail. He was taking... Read more
I am sure that this will come as a major shock to many occupants of The Washington Post newsroom: The divisions among African-Americans over gay rights also show up among Latinos and, no surprise, these differences often are rooting in faith and varying levels of religious practice. Once again, there is a “pew gap” at play in this scenario. Of course, it is certainly news — as shown in a Pew Forum poll that’s making headlines — that Latino views... Read more
I know readers prefer us to harsh on stories rather than praise them, but I don’t care. I have to just highlight a great story from David Kirkpatrick in the New York Times. Now, most of what makes the story interesting is outside this blog’s bailiwick. The piece is headlined “Suspect in Libya Attack, in Plain Sight, Scoffs at U.S.” At a time when the White House is being criticized for its handling of events in Libya, the story is... Read more
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