It is a common critique that residents of one country are disinterested in the goings on in other countries. But one story from this weekend spread quickly across news media and social media — albeit less so in American media than globally. The story is a sad one. I first learned about it from a news outlet called Times of India: ISLAMABAD: An 11-year-old Christian girl has been arrested in Pakistani capital on a charge of blasphemy after she was... Read more
As all loyal GetReligion readers know, sometimes we see things make it into news print that are simply too good, too strange, too funny, to make up. When this happens, the best course of action is simply to share the love and laughter. In this case, here is what we need. I’m calling out Jettboy (who provided the tip) and company. We need our Mormon readers to join us in, uh, consuming this delightful little Associated Press story about Mormonism... Read more
In this week’s podcast Issues Etc. host Todd Wilkin and I discussed three recent GetReligion stories: Doggie Masses offered by Inclusive Catholics in Australia, one-sided reporting on Missouri’s Amendment 2, and the parole of Michelle Martin. Todd opened the show asking why I had lambasted the coverage of the Public Prayer Amendment in Missouri in the report from RNS. The gist of my response was that the article was unbalanced. Offering man on the street responses from Columbia, Missouri (a... Read more
Take a moment and peruse this fascinating New York Times report about disputed oil drilling on a Montana Indian reservation. Tell me what kind of story it is: A. Business story B. Environmental story C. Religion story D. All of the above Here’s the colorful lede: BLACKFEET INDIAN RESERVATION, Mont. — The mountains along the eastern edge of Glacier National Park rise from the prairie like dinosaur teeth, their silvery ridges and teardrop fields of snow forming the doorway to one of America’s... Read more
You know that you have moved into true Bible Belt territory when the locals start asking you — literally while the moving van is in your drive way — blunt questions that sound something like this: “Hey, do you folks know where you’re gonna go church yet?” Now, I would imagine that this question is not asked nearly as often when people move into New York City. I think that’s a pretty safe piece of speculation. However, I would argue... Read more
When a Neo-Nazi gunman killed and wounded worshipers at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, we looked at a few problems with the coverage. Some readers suggested additional problems. See here and here, for instance. I actually thought much of the coverage was good. This New York Times story (“For Victim in Sikh Temple Shooting, a Life of Separation“) was a keeper and the general coverage at CNN and its Belief Blog have been extensive and thoughtful. But more... Read more
In his 2008 Atlantic review of Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite Christopher Hitchens retells a “sour old joke” from the Nazi era. Two elderly Jews [are] sitting in a Berlin park, with one of them reading a Yiddish paper and the other one scanning the pages of Der Stürmer. The latter Jew is laughing. This proves too much for the former Jew, who says: “It’s not enough you read that Nazi rag, but you find it funny?” “Look,”... Read more
Two deaths this week give the media a chance to cover significant changes in women’s sexuality within the past few decades. Helen Gurley Brown, former editor of Cosmo and author of Sex and the Single Girl, died Monday. On Tuesday, several leaders sent a flurry of statements on the death of Nellie Gray, the founder of the March for Life, an annual march marking the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. The timed deaths give us the opportunity to compare the amount of coverage... Read more
One of the most powerful ways we receive and process information is visually. And we don’t get too much of a chance to discuss how coverage of religion news is shaped by visual images that accompany copy. But someone sent me a link to a story and told me I had to check out the picture that accompanied it. It got me thinking. The picture in question can be found here. It accompanies a story about the Leadership Conference of... Read more
It didn’t take long, after the Rt. Rev. Douglas Leblanc and I started GetReligion.org back in 2004, for people to start suggesting that this weblog needed to hook up with a larger website or online institution that was about religion or journalism or, hopefully, both. Early on, it seemed that a massive religion portal — think fishing for beliefs — was going to be able to produce a serious, broad blend of multi-faith news and commentary. We talked. There wasn’t... Read more
GetReligion
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In