Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
I have been waiting for someone to write a story about George Zimmerman and his family and it’s religious background ever since I saw a passing reference to him being a former altar boy.
Back in February, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee held a hearing on religious liberty concerns arising from the new Health and Human Services mandate requiring religious employers to fund insurance plans that include drugs and services they morally oppose. This is an issue that has been boiling up since last year, but has suffered from poor coverage, which we’ve repeatedly detailed.
Via Romenesko, I found this story about a priest suing a newspaper over their lack of diligence in publishing a letter to the editor. The East Central Illinois News-Gazette has the story:
As we discussed the other day, many media reports about the Vatican document cracking down on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious went with the angle that the report “stunned” or otherwise surprised the sisters. I suggested that reports should do a better job of explaining that surprise.
To understand this post, you will need to see the photo that accompanied the USA Today news feature that ran under an A1 headline stating: “Shifts detected in support for death penalty.”
Yesterday, as we were discussing a particularly helpful, if brief, discussion about the Vatican document regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, reader Martha wrote that she agreed that the PBS discussion I highlighted was good:
I’ll be the first to admit that, as a guy from a family that bleeds green and gold, I am slightly freaked out that Baylor University’s Robert Griffin III (that Heisman Trophy guy) will soon be the quarterback for the Washington Redskins. I mean, I dislike the owner of the Redskins almost as much as I dislike the owner of the Dallas Cowboys (as a Tom Landry fan, I still have anger issues).
With how many newspaper editorial pages expressed outrage over the Vatican’s paper on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, something tells me we’ll be looking at the mainstream news pages’ take on things for a while to come.
On this week’s Crossroads, host Todd Wilken and I talk about one of my favorite subjects: journalism.
