LATimes looks at Egypt; sees only signs of Islamic life

Last updated on: October 2, 2013 at 10:47 am By tmatt

Over the past two years, your GetReligionistas have frequently urged (one example here) journalists to cover news from Egypt in a way that draws some lines between that complex land’s many clashing religious camps, especially the Muslim groups that take different approaches to blasphemy and tolerance when dealing with religious minorities. It helps that the Pew Forum team has offered solid poll data on precisely these issues. Click here for a Google search linked to that information. Dig deep. Needless... Read more

A more graceful Ross joins GetReligion crew

Last updated on: October 1, 2013 at 2:58 pm By Tamie Ross

Some folks get annoyed when they read a news story with holes, a piece with errors, prose with pockmarks. Me? I see it as an opportunity to learn and to teach. And when there’s nothing to fix, when all angles are covered and no questions remain by the ending, I rejoice and join in the celebration of good journalism. Everyone wins! That’s part of why GetReligion captivates me, and it’s a big reason why I’m thrilled by the opportunity to... Read more

NYTimes reverts to using vague labels in Texas science war

Last updated on: October 2, 2013 at 9:29 am By tmatt

It’s time for a GetReligion post linked to press coverage of biology, textbooks, God and Texas. Before I jump into the fine details, I’d like to make two observations. First of all, since my goal is to discuss a story in The New York Times, it is important to note that stories about this topic fall under former editor Bill Keller’s proclamation that the world’s most powerful newspaper no longer feels obligated to offer balanced, accurate coverage of voices on... Read more

To use or not to use: Journalists and the word ‘Islam’

Last updated on: October 1, 2013 at 9:44 am By tmatt

Do you ever get the impression, when reading mainstream news stories, that some editors have created formal policies describing when reporters who cover terrorism stories can or cannot mention the words “Islam” or “Muslim”? I understand what these journalists are trying to do. Their goal, in the post 9/11 world, is to make sure that news consumers understand that there is no ironclad, automatic connection between Islam and the actions of some Muslims who commit acts of violence and terror... Read more

Cheesiest Godbeat write-up of the year?

Last updated on: September 30, 2013 at 12:36 pm By mollie

Via the Deacon’s Bench comes this example of how not to write a story about a scandal involving a Roman Catholic priest. Deacon Greg Kandra’s piece is headlined “Great moments in journalism: priest fathers a child, newspaper smirks.” He thinks it’s so cheesy that the journalists should get remedial training. The story in the New York Daily News begins: A Catholic priest in California is about to be another kind of father — after he unleashed his unholy spirit and... Read more

Der Spiegel and the cutting question of circumcision

Last updated on: September 30, 2013 at 9:40 am By geoconger

The issue of circumcision has returned to Germany’s newspapers — and the manner in which the controversy is being discussed suggests that while the press is aware of the issues of personal autonomy generated by state intervention into the private sphere, the religious liberty (or perhaps the religious sensibility) issue is missing from the story. The English-language section of Der Spiegel ran a news analysis story on 27 Sept 2013 entitled “Cutting Controversy: German Court Sets New Circumcision Rules”. It... Read more

Got news? Looking at key facts in the Chris Davis timeline

Last updated on: September 29, 2013 at 1:01 pm By tmatt

It’s the last day of the regular baseball season and for fans of the Baltimore Orioles there was a very bittersweet taste to the year. What does that have to do with religion-news coverage? While many will argue that baseball is a religion (click here for a classic), trust me that I will get to the real religion hook in this post soon enough. While our O’s narrowly missed the playoffs, the team did have another winning season and made... Read more

Der Spiegel: Never let a good @Pontifex go to waste

Last updated on: September 28, 2013 at 8:48 pm By Mark Kellner

The clear differences in the style of Pope Francis as opposed to his predecessors, both as Bishop of Rome and in his former position as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, have electrified the world media. Here, they exclaim, is a clergyperson who is “walking the talk” about living to serve others. Few places seem to relish this new approach more than Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly issued forth from Hamburg, in the mostly-Protestant north of the country. On Sep. 14, in... Read more

Saith EEE: The business of those religion-beat cuts

Last updated on: September 27, 2013 at 2:44 pm By tmatt

The other day I received an email from a former GetReligion colleague, the Rev. Elizabeth Eisenstadt-Evans, in which she posed an interesting question. She wanted an update on the status of my weekly “On Religion” column for the Scripps Howard News Service, including how many papers ran the column through Scripps or through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. It was an absolutely crazy week in my day job and, well, I didn’t have a chance to promptly answer the email. That’s... Read more

The warning in the atheist pastor story

Last updated on: September 27, 2013 at 12:23 pm By mollie

The New York Times today has a piece headlined “Minister Admits Overstating Her Credentials,” an update of sorts to the previous week’s fluffy profile of a mainline pastor (“After a Crisis of Faith, a Former Minister Finds a New, Secular Mission”) that began: Nine days before Easter in 2012, the Rev. Teresa MacBain sent a letter to the congregants she had pastored for three years at a Methodist church in Tallahassee, Fla. For much of that time, she had preached... Read more