Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
One of the advantages of living and working on Capitol Hill is that there are all kinds of interesting people who live in your neighborhood. I mean, there is this house a block or so away from my computer keyboard that, these days, has all kinds of people in black suits in black cars around it these days. I think it has something to do with it being the home of the junior senator from Illinois.
I have been putting off posting the second part of my dialogue (click here for earlier post) with freelance journalist Andrea Useem for two simple reasons: (1) I was out of town for a week, attempting to survive four days of traffic-challenged driving in greater Los Angeles and (2) we normally fill our 5Q+1 interviews with hyperlinks to all of the publications, schools, think tanks, etc., linked to the journalist’s career and, in this case, Useem has just been too busy for me to look up all of those links.
GetReligion’s friend David Crumm sent email this week with the news that he will take a months-long leave of absence from the Detroit Free Press to develop a project called Read the Spirit. To call Read the Spirit a blog focused on religion news would be an understatement.
Anyone who knows the history of religion writing in the American press knows that Time played a major role in proving that religion is, in fact, news and, come to think of it, that cover stories about religion can move large numbers of copies off the store shelves. Cover stories about religion have often fueled debate about American religion (like the old yet still famous “Is God Dead?” story) as well as reflected the news.
Many years ago I wrote an angry letter to the editor of Rolling Stone, doubting whether that magazine ever would give serious attention to religion and believers. I am glad that, as a contributing editor for both Rolling Stone and Harper’s, Jeff Sharlet has proven me wrong.
Kim Lawton is managing editor and correspondent for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on PBS, where she has worked since 1997. She began her career as a religion writer by covering the fall of PTL’s Jim Bakker in the late 1980s. She has written for United Press International, Religion News Service, News Network International, Christianity Today and International Media Service.
Fred Barnes is a Christian conservative who runs an openly conservative magazine and attends a conservative Anglican parish. He also spends a lot of his time in the world of talk television, which means he is used to stating his views in short bursts of information and he doesn’t mind if people disagree.
