A long, long, time ago — almost a decade, in fact — there was a Los Angeles Times editor who wrote a letter to his section editors in which he defended solid, old-fashioned American journalism. You know, the kind that strives to accurately quote informed voices on both sides of controversial issues, perhaps even in a way that promotes informed, balanced, constructive debate and civic life. The editor’s name was John Carroll. His famous memo started like this: I’m concerned... Read more
Anyone who has ever tried to do media criticism knows that it is so, so easy to complain about the work of others, especially when you do not know all of the factors that led to a particular story being reported, written and edited in a particular way. This is why you will rarely see your GetReligionistas criticize reporters — repeat, reporters — by name. We prefer to attribute whatever is published or broadcast to the news organization as a... Read more
Get ready GetReligion readers for the next twist in the Muslim outrage story. Today’s issue of Charlie Hebdo — a lowbrow political humor magazine akin to Private Eye — tops the “Innocence of Muslims” film in crassness and bad taste. That direct to YouTube video produced by an expatriate Egyptian Copt denigrates Islam and Muhammad, denouncing him as a charlatan, womanizer, and sexual degenerate. The rest is history. While some members of the mob that assaulted the U.S. embassy may... Read more
Readers of GetReligion are familiar with that mainstream media holiday tradition of releasing news stories that are supposed to shake the foundations of Christianity. Easters over the last few years have explained to all those gullible believers that Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water), that he wasn’t crucified in the manner in which people think, that Jesus’ father was — of course — a Roman soldier named Pantera and that Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much... Read more
The title of this story from the Agence France Presse (AFP), “Exorcism boom in Poland sees magazine launch” caught my eye, as a good headline should, and set my click finger twitching. “What was this?”, I wondered. An explosion during an exorcism? Did the acolyte get too close with his burning taper to a gas line? Satan levitating magazines, tossing back issues of Our Sunday Visitor at a cowled cleric? Alas, my imagination — alight with images of Max von... Read more
Like many other Baby Boomer believers who grew up in the era of ugly-as-sin church architecture, I am a total sucker for stately, soaring old churches. Several years ago, I walked around during my first ever visit to Rome and found myself asking one question over and over: With all of these secular Italians declining to have children, who is going to fill or maintain all these gorgeous churches? I’m not talking about St. Peter’s and the famous sanctuaries, of... Read more
A few weeks ago, departing New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane said something everybody already knows: When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of... Read more
The Godbeat (or religion beat) is in the middle of some major shifts again, ones that can leave glaring holes in several newspapers across the country. For instance, we watch and read several religion blogs, including Reuters, RNS, CNN, among others. One we regularly read was USA Today‘s Faith & Reason, run by Cathy Lynn Grossman. Grossman, with some spiffy glasses, posted this update on the blog, though. First, the important thing that’s not changing: I still cover religion —... Read more
Well, there goes that Archbishop Charles Chaput guy again, “thundering” away at his flock on a matter of Catholic doctrine. You know all about that “thundering” tone, right? That’s when religious leaders state what they believe in clear English that can be understood in newsrooms as well as pews. In this case, the “thundering” sounded like this: Even when a defendant is well defended, properly tried and justly found guilty, experience shows that capital punishment simply doesn’t work as a... Read more
In comments to my post this weekend suggesting a few angles for coverage of Muslim protests against America and one of its resident’s films, reader Sari asked: Why has there been virtually no journalistic comment on the antisemitic aspect? If you’ve been following this story, you know that when news broke about the 14-minute YouTube clip of an anti-Muslim film, reporters wrote that the guy behind the film said he was Israeli-American and that the movie had been funded by... Read more
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