It’s safe to assume that, at this moment in time, Pope Francis is a rock star when it comes to his relationship with the mainstream news media. It would appear that whatever the man wants to say about a controversial issue is going to be reported and, miracle of miracles, perhaps even graced with an attention-grabbing headline. Alas, it would wrong to assume this. It’s clear that the pope can speak on issues of global importance and receive very little... Read more
A headline from the Washington Post: E.W. Jackson says non-Christians are engaged in ‘some sort of false religion’ Reaction from the reader who passed along that story link to GetReligion: GASP GASP GASP! Well, if I am interpreting the sarcasm correctly, there seems to be a disconnect between the Post and that particular reader concerning the news value of that story. Let’s start at the top: At a morning sermon Sunday in Northern Virginia, Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson,... Read more
If there is a “Ground Zero” for the world’s three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — it would be the Temple Mount, or “Haram Al-Sharif” (“Noble Sanctuary”) in the center of Jerusalem. Jews revere it as the site of the First and Second Temples, wherein the “Holy of Holies” was contained. Christians revere the Temple as the place where Jesus walked and reasoned with the rabbis — as well as chastised the Pharisees and money changers. Muslims view the... Read more
Hypocrisy pays. Reading about the foibles of the great and good, the rich and famous sells newspapers. When you have a story that combines religion and hypocrisy you can count on a nice bump in circulation. Market forces determine newspaper content. It is difficult to sell church stories to an editor. A story on the dodgy theology of the head of the Episcopal Church may generate 125,000 views on a religion news website (earning it the church newspaper equivalent of... Read more
Well here’s a pretty good example of what appears to be the failure to get religion details into a story. Here’s the top of the story from Yahoo! sports: Concordia College Alabama coach Don Lee can’t help but think someone was watching over his team Saturday when the second of two buses headed for their game against Miles College blew up in front of them. Lee, who is also the athletic director of the small school in Selma, Ala., was... Read more
For decades, I have been covering stories involving clashes between religious organizations and state and county tax officials. The key plot elements in these legal dramas usually include: * The church is a growing nondenominational Christian group. In other words, an independent congregation with little or no access to national church-state lawyers. * Neighbors are worried about the church’s expanding facilities and the impact on traffic. * Tax officials want more revenue. Duh. * There is some question about whether... Read more
In recent decades mainstream journalists have spilled oceans of ink — with good cause — on stories about the declining number of men entering the Catholic priesthood. Fewer and older men are trying to serve a flock that is rapidly changing in ethnic makeup, while membership totals have continued a slow rise (largely due to Latino numbers). So what is the next subject linked to that story? The rising number of permanent, married Catholic deacons. While all eyes have been... Read more
Here at GetReligion, we don’t generally report the news. We critique media coverage of the news. But when significant developments occur among Godbeat pros, we try to share that information with our faithful readers. That’s because we believe that it matters who’s covering the religion beat — and who isn’t. Lately, we’ve had a number of these inside baseball developments to pass along, including the departures of three Godbeat stars: Bob Smietana from The Tennessean, Ann Rodgers from the Pittsburgh... Read more
The hellish events in Nairobi’s Westgate Premier Shopping Mall continue to unfold under the digital gaze of the world’s media. However, some of the most poignant and gripping elements of the story are as old as the region’s battles of conquest and conversion. Soon after the story broke, I noted the following detail in The Washington Post, part of a story that did little to explore the religious elements of the terrorist attacks. That quote: One injured victim said the... Read more
One of the most fascinating communities in Orthodox Judaism has to be the Lubavitcher group, whose “mitzvah tanks” prowl mid-Manhattan in search of Jews they want to invite for a brief prayer. Around the world, from Montana to Mumbai, Lubavitch emissaries seek out other Jews, perhaps detached from formal observance, in an effort to win them back into the fold. The late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was at the center of the Lubavitch revival of the past 60 years or so... Read more
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