All together now, GetReligion readers. Strange fascination, fascinating me Changes are taking the pace I’m going through … Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the stranger) Ch-ch-Changes Pretty soon you’re gonna get a little older Time may change me But I can’t trace time I said that time may change me But I can’t trace time GetReligion has faced some major changes in its nearly 10 years of cyber-life, but nothing like what we’ll be going through this month. Alas, I am... Read more
According to Catholic News Agency: Pope Francis made a global petition on Sept. 1 asking that everyone, regardless of religion or location, to fast and pray during the whole day of Sept. 7 for world peace, particularly in Syria. I noticed that various friends and acquaintances were participating in a special day of prayer and fasting — some sent the word along to join in, some merely mentioned that they were doing it, some shared how their particular parish was... Read more
Tabloids will always be with us. Few will admit to taking Jesus-shaped potato chips, astrology, Elvis and UFO sightings and Kardashian stories printed by The National Enquirer, the Star, The Globe, the National Examiner and the Weekly World News seriously — but American Media Inc. does quite well for itself by feeding the guilty pleasures of the American public. The New York Daily News, the New York Post and similar newspapers are tabloids of a different sort. They are written in a simple and... Read more
It seems that many networkers in the online world remain fired up about that recent Washington Post explainer that ran under the headline “9 questions about Egypt you were too embarrassed to ask.” That’s the one you may recall, in part because of this GetReligion post, that was the first of many similar mainstream media pieces that have tried to explain the rising violence in Syria without including information about its crucial religious divisions. What kind of religious divisions at... Read more
In three and a half years, I’ve written 439 posts for GetReligion (this makes 440, I believe). That ranks me No. 5 on the all-time GetReligionista list, with tmatt the Hank Aaron of GR at 3,139 and Mollie next at 2,015. That’s a lot of posts. And that’s a lot of opportunity to type a quick opinion on deadline and either not express it clearly enough or — in some cases — botch it altogether. In a post this week... Read more
So, unless you have spent quite a bit of time on another planet in recent months, you probably know that Pope Francis is a rock star in global mass media and that condition will probably continue until he stands up in some crucial public-square location — Comedy Central perhaps — and makes a bunch of statements defending Catholic moral teachings. THe bubbly Jesuit from Latin America is everywhere right now. With that in mind, the pros over at Religion News... Read more
In San Antonio, a battle over a proposed ordinance to add “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the city’s nondiscrimination code has dominated headlines the last few weeks. The San Antonio Express-News has been all over the story, including a report last week by award-winning Godbeat pro Abe Levy (who has been tweeting about the debate) on black and Latino clergy rallying against the measure. A GetReligion reader complained that one story this week contained this criticism with no reference to... Read more
The best construction I can put on the article we’re about to look at is that Bloomberg editors and reporters accidentally put an abortion rights op-ed in the news section by accident. And yet there are enough things about the piece that make it seem like it was a failed attempt at a news story to make me think otherwise. The op-ed article begins: At least 58 U.S. abortion clinics — almost 1 in 10 — have shut or stopped... Read more
Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me I think they’re O.K. If they don’t give me proper credit I just walk away They can beg and they can plead But they can’t see the light, that’s right ‘Cause the boy with the cold hard cash Is always Mister Right, ’cause we are Living in a material world And I am a material girl You know that we are living in a material world And I am a material girl... Read more
Are you ready for some football! GetReligion readers: What?!? So, the National Football League season starts tonight with the world-champion Baltimore Ravens returning (due to a baseball schedule issue here in Charm City) to Denver to play the other beloved team of my heart, the Broncos. As you would expect, this means that the team at The Baltimore Sun needed to churn out another lengthy news feature in which an obvious religion angle (a “ghost” in other words) was buried... Read more
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