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NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday had a story about a 71-year-old atheist’s rather curious legal battle against the Catholic Church in France. Rene LeBouvier has taken the church to court over its refusal to let him “nullify” his baptism:
Court cases often provide story ideas for profiles of individuals and motivations behind church/state battles, but profiling one side can risk making everyone else look like the monster out to get the hero. For instance, it’s hard not to feel bad for Jessica Ahlquist, an outspoken atheist who successfully sued to get a prayer removed from her high school auditorium after reading the New York Times profile. After all, a state representative called her âan evil little thing,â according to the story.
I realize that many news consumers are not fond of the emerging tradition in many mainstream newsrooms of running pushy, perhaps even provocative news features during major religious holiday seasons — especially stories during Christmas and Easter.
Here at GetReligion, we’re a generally amiable group. There’s not a lot of backbiting or harsh words among your friendly neighborhood ghostbusters. We get along just fine, thank you very much.
What a week in deaths. We already talked about Christopher Hitchens. On Sunday, we learned that the great Czech playwright, revolutionary and president Vaclav Havel died.
It’s “War on Christmas” time again in the public square and, thus, in our newspapers from sea to shining sea. Rejoice, all ye lawyers.
I have been unbelievable swamped all day, working on final grades for the fall term at the Washington Journalism Center. That’s doesn’t matter to GetReligion readers, of course, but it does mean that I have not been plugged into the World Wide Web all day.
We all knew it was coming but somehow that didn’t make the news any easier to bear. Christopher Hitchens, the mighty literary provocateur, died yesterday. This is a profound loss to his wife and family, who loved him so much it hurts to think about. And it’s a loss for the Republic of Letters and all those he touched, including the townfolk of Washington, D.C.
What do you need to do to get featured in the New York Times? Just get a Facebook group of about 800 people, apparently. The website Stuff Journalists Like noted a trend of journalists who love the social network.
