Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Back in March I wrote in “How To Cover A Hate Crime” about my obsession about the horrific beating death of Shaima Al Awadhi, a 32-year-old mother of five:
A journalism fellowship program I’m involved with recently heard from one Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief. He told us that many moons ago, heâd written some copy for the on-air talent to read for that nightâs show. The line was something like âClinton believes that the tax bill will pass.â The guy who was supposed to read the line â he happened to be an old-school journalist of some renown â excoriated him. He told Feist that a reporter can never know what a politician thinks, believes or feels. The reporter can only know what the politician says.
Let’s drop the media criticism for a moment and have a bit of fun (about a topic that is actually pretty serious).
Laying out the front page of the November 7 issue presented a few problems for the Madrid daily El PaÃs. Journalists at Spain’s largest circulation newspaper (345,000) began a walk out this week after management announced that it was cutting 139 of the paper’s 460 posts. Those who still had jobs would see their pay cut by 13 per cent.
Well, everyone, we made it through another presidential campaign year! Congratulations to the winners and condolences to the losers and all that.
It should be a quiet day on the religion-beat front, in the wake of yesterday’s nail-biters in the real world of politics. If the past repeats itself, as it often does, it will take a few days for the religion elements of the story to emerge, other than the usual “Obama won the Catholic vote (whatever that is)” headlines.
On some levels, the legal drama unfolding in Poland these days could be called the Son of Pussy Riot media storm. Alas, the media coverage of the case of heavy-metal man Adam Darski and his ripped of Bible will, in my opinion, rise or fall depending on whether journalists ask the same kinds of questions in Poland that they needed to ask in Russia.
