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The New Yorker‘s Joan Acocella writes elegantly. Her recent article on Michael Jackson as a dancer was one of the finest non-mawkish reflections that followed Jackson’s sudden death early this month.
Architecture is one of the more neglected corners of religion coverage, but occasionally a conflict about historic preservation revives the theme. National Public Radio’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty reported in 2008 about the battle between Third Church of Christ, Scientist, and city officials over the church’s desire to replace its Brutalist-style facility. (That battle rages on, and this website tracks the latest developments, from the perspective of church members.)
If a headline by Time.com sounds too good to be true — “Drug Dealing for Jesus: Mexico’s Evangelical Narcos” — it’s because the article fails to deliver any serious evidence to back its claim. We’re told that members of La Familia Michoacana “purport to be devout Evangelical Christians” (that D-word should set off incredulity meters across the land) and that “They are also made to study a special Bible authored by the gang’s spiritual leader, Nazario Moreno, alias El Mas Loco, or ‘The Maddest One.’”
Our friends at Episcopal Café may be about the only media people to place Walter Cronkite’s faith so high in a story, but there it is, right in the headline: “Walter Cronkite, newsanchor & Episcopalian, dies at 92.”
At GetReligion we must often acknowledge how difficult it is for reporters to tell complex stories in shrinking news spaces — which makes it so important to praise reporters who do an exceptional job.
I know that neither the Vatican nor the White House made it easy to cover President Obama’s meeting with Pope Benedict XVI last week, but the situation seemed especially desperate when a reporter must begin interpreting body language for coded messages. Here’s Jeff Israely of Time:
GetReligion reader Barbara Kolbe recently gave us the nudge we required to create a Twitter feed. Despite my earlier mockery of encouraging Christians to tweet during worship services, I (and my colleagues) recognize Twitter’s inescapable importance in today’s media landscape.
Terry mentioned a report last week about Michael Jackson possibly choosing “plastination” as a grim sort of immortality. Now USA Today‘s Lifeline Live blog reports that speculation has continued about Jackson’s burial plans.
Whatever Vanity Fair pays its national editor, Todd S. Purdum, he earns every dollar with expertly crafted hit pieces. His lengthy takedown of Bill Clinton last year was satisfying for readers long troubled by Clinton’s various indiscretions, political and otherwise.
