It would be impossible to compare coverage among major news outlets, so plentiful have been the stories this week hailing His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge’s baptism into the Church of England. The event, as with all activities attended by several senior members of the royal family, was well publicized in advance and blanketed with coverage. Bets were placed on the colors the ladies would wear, which family members would carry the infant in and out of the chapel... Read more
Like many GetReligion readers, I was somewhat rattled by that recent Washington Post story about the mainstream press and its love affair with what it thinks Pope Francis is saying about the doctrines of the Catholic church. Wait a minute. That’s not what the story was about. It was about the state of conservative Catholic nerves in the freewheeling age of Francis. To refresh your memory, that story started out like this: Rattled by Pope Francis’s admonishment to Catholics not... Read more
I had a sense of deja vu this week as I clicked on a 2,000-word Wall Street Journal profile of Russell Moore: For years, as the principal public voice for the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s biggest evangelical group, Richard Land warned of a “radical homosexual agenda” and pushed for a federal ban on same-sex marriage. His successor, Russell Moore, sounded a different note when the Supreme Court in June struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. “Love your gay and lesbian neighbors,” Mr.... Read more
Let’s start with a few journalistic questions. Am I surprised that The New York Times has published a story on the possibility that freethinking Egyptians are beginning to flee their troubled nation or, at the very least, to debate whether it is time to do? No. That’s a perfectly valid news story. Am I surprised that the team at the world’s most influential newspaper elected to focus this story on political activists, intellectuals, urbanites and artists who fit into the... Read more
Over the weekend, I did a post titled “Another one-sided AP same-sex marriage story.” I complained, not for the first time, that The Associated Press seems to have decided that stories about same-sex marriage need to include only one side: the side excited about same-sex marriage. My post prompted this comment from a gay-rights advocate who identified himself as Scott L: Sounds like the AP is behaving like a responsible organization in 2013. Marriage equality is a reality in much... Read more
We’ve been doing death, so to speak, at my house the last few weeks — working through the aftermath, talking about grief, that sort of thing. So I immediately was drawn to an Associated Press piece highlighting end-of-life discussions taking place in informal settings throughout the U.S. and in major cities worldwide. Death Cafés, they call them: It can be tough to get a conversation going if you want to talk about the late stages of dementia, your last will and... Read more
Here’s an interesting piece of church-crisis communications advice: Don’t take your story to the press. In fact, don’t even try to answer their questions. In a nutshell, that’s the Oct. 15 advice from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary president Paige Patterson, who cited I Corinthians 6 to justify it. Since Paul wrote that believers shouldn’t go to secular courts for justice, that means, the Associated Baptist Press quoted Patterson as saying: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson said the prohibition in First... Read more
Once again, let us return to the dictionary and ponder why some journalists in our age are having trouble using a basic scientific term that has become all too common in our news. The word of the day is “fetus.” Look it up and you’ll find the following information or something close to it: fe·tus … pl. fe·tus·es … 2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as... Read more
The BBC’s internet news division stumbled badly this week in its initial report on a major meeting of Anglican church leaders in Africa. The 20 October 2013 story entitled “Archbishop of Canterbury makes Kenya detour on way to Iceland” has already had one correction and substantial alteration but the underlying premise of the story remains flawed. It demonstrates the perils of relying on a single source in reporting the news. The opening paragraphs of the original version, reprinted by the... Read more
BOBBY ASKS: Who are the “Mainline” Protestants today? DOUGLAS LIKEWISE ASKS: (Paraphrasing) What do we make of proposals for “Mainline” Protestants to drop that label for themselves? And where does that leave me, an “evangelical” who remains in the Episcopal Church “as a grain of sand in the oyster”? THE GUY ANSWERS: The dictionary definition of “mainline” signals mainstream prestige, so “Mainline” Protestantism’s decline over recent decades could mean this designation has long since outlived its usefulness. In his email,... Read more
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