Food

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Washington Post on God, food, work: What did the politician say? Does that matter anymore?

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It's a question that keeps bothering me, even though I know the answer.

Why do major newspapers keep cranking up the number of opinion, analysis and commentary pieces in their daily buffet of "news" these days, even when "covering" events that in the past would have received ordinary, hard-news, "let's try to be accurate and balanced" coverage?

This phenomenon is linked to the Internet, of course, with its emphasis on attracting loyal readers who will click on your links day after day after day and then forward them on to their like-minded friends. The old business model -- exposing advertisers to as many people, and as many kinds of people, as possible -- is fading fast. More and more, news is about preaching to the choir.

Ask the people signing up all of those angry post 2016-election digital subscribers at The New York Times (I signed up in the mid-1990s). Ask the producers of the opinion-talk shows at MSNBC and Fox News. Ask the folks at BuzzFeed and Breitbart.

So how does one judge the quality of "news" that is openly labeled "analysis"? You already know that it is commentary that is going to favor one side. Do you expect the analyst to be fare to viewpoints on both sides of a debate? No. Do you expect them to be open about the worldviews of their sources? No.

But how about mere accuracy? That's the main question raised by conservative Sean Davis at The Federalist, in a piece in which he -- opening with a they don't "get religion" rally cry --  digs into a liberal Washington Post analysis piece that ran with this scorching headline: "GOP lawmaker: The Bible says ‘if a man will not work, he shall not eat’."

There's lots to discuss here, but the main Post material being debated is this:

One lawmaker is citing a godly reference to justify changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.) recently quoted the New Testament to question the strength of current work requirements.


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Live coverage of Ash Wednesday stories? Be on alert for ironic theological twists out there

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Ah, yes. Another year, another trip around the liturgical calendar. That means another request from an editor for an Ash Wednesday feature or two.

Based on my own experiences in newsrooms, I have always wondered if the tradition of news organizations doing Ash Wednesday stories has something to do with the high number of ex-Catholics or cultural Catholics (as well as Episcopalians) in newsrooms. Who will show up for work in the afternoon with ashes on her or his forehead? What will people say (in a post-Ted Turner world)?

Then again, maybe Ash Wednesday is a story year after year because it's an assignment that comes with easy, automatic art. 

Finally, there is the fact that Ash Wednesday and Lent are highly serious religious traditions (think meditations on death and repentance) for the people that take faith seriously. However, for some reason, it also seems easy for people to tweak and/or laugh at these traditions. What editor doesn't want to smile in an ironic sort of way at an "ashes to go" lede? And there is an endless possibility of trendy (and stupid) variations on the "What are you going to give up for Lent" non-traditional tradition. 

Then again, it is possible (#Gasp) to do stories on the actual meaning of Lent and it's relevance to issues in our day and age.

Yes, ponder the spiritual implications of Ash Wednesday selfies. This very interesting advance story -- "#Ashtags: When posting Ash Wednesday photos, use your head" -- comes from Catholic News Service, via an online boost from Religion News Service. Here is the overture:

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Ash Wednesday seems to offer contradictory messages. The Gospel reading for the day is about not doing public acts of piety but the very act of getting ashes -- and walking around with them -- is pretty public.
This becomes even less of a private moment when people post pictures of themselves online with their ashes following the #ashtag trend of recent years.


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As it turns out, hijabs were the most obvious religion issue in Women's March

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By now we’ve all heard about the Women’s March on Saturday that caused millions of pink-clad people to take to the streets around the world, even in Antarctica. (Even more impressive were the 2,000 people marching in -50º weather in Fairbanks. Now that’s dedication).

But where did faith fit in? Before the event, Religion News Service had a columnist assemble “a Christian packing list” for the march. Jewish Telegraphic Agency did a walk-up describing where two Jewish groups will organize and meet. 

On the day of the March, RNS had two people survey the religious women to be found on the mall, all of them with the religious left. Buzzfeed followed pro-life women and documented the less-than-enthusiastic reception they got. (I wrote about the controversy surrounding them last week.)

The lone mention about religion from the actual speakers at the Washington March was documented by New York Magazine, which broadcast a quote from Janelle Monae (in the above video) who plays mathematician Mary Jackson in the movie “Hidden Figures.”

Janelle Monáe started her speech at the Women’s March on Washington today with a history lesson. “I wanna remind you that it was woman that gave you Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,” she said. “It was woman that gave you Malcolm X. And according to the Bible, it was a woman that gave you Jesus.”

But the big religion topic that most media missed had to do with how one of the major symbols for the event was a woman swathed in an American flag wrapped to look like a hijab.

This intriguing column in the New York Times dealt with the March disintegrating into “a grab-bag of competing victimhood narratives and individualist identities jostling for most-oppressed status.” The writer wondered why Muslim women were one of the oppressed classes named in the “Guiding Vision and Definition Principles of the March” when Jewish and Latino women weren’t mentioned at all. Her explanation:


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Thanksgiving gloom 2016: Have we beat this Election Year story to death at this point?

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Greetings from the Bible Belt, where the arrival of your Thanksgiving Day newspaper means -- in addition to five pounds of Black Friday advertising inserts -- seeing headlines like "Local Tennessee players open their homes to teammates on Thanksgiving" and "Making Them Feel At Home: Knox Area cares for firefighters battling blazes in Tennessee."

I'd link to that second headline, the A1 banner, but The Knoxville News Sentinel team, for some reason, didn't put that story on the newspaper's website. Anyway, there is enough information there for you get the point, as everyone in this region prays for rain.

The big picture down there: Thanksgiving stories are about families getting together, helping people who are in need and, yes, lots and lots of food.

I get the impression that the basic mood is a little bit different today in Washington, D.C., where a quick survey of the Washington Post headlines yields:

"America: Be thankful you have something to complain about."

"How to prevent Thanksgiving Armageddon."

"How to survive Thanksgiving 2016."

Ah, the chattering classes. How would we know what to think and feel without them? But, hey, not everything is political in that newsroom. There are these offerings as well:

"What the label on your Thanksgiving turkey won’t tell you."

"11 strategies for getting through the holidays without weight gain."

"When you cook your worst at Thanksgiving, here’s how to recover with grace."

Finally, there is one actual feature to read, an "Inspired Life" feature with this headline: Can family trump Trump? How to survive political disagreements with relatives this Thanksgiving. This story is exactly what you think it would be, in keeping with the post-Election Day meltdown in elite Acela zone newsrooms:


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Ahmad Khan Rahami: The New York Times offers early clues to a life transformed

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While politicians keep arguing about what is and what is not a bomb and what is and what is not a “motive” for terrorism, most American journalists -- at least in the print media -- have settled into a somewhat predictable pattern for covering the basic facts of these kinds of events.

That was a compliment.

There was a time when reporters seemed so anxious to avoid the religion angles in these stories that they actually buried or ignored basic facts -- which almost certainly led to increased distrust among readers. We are talking about stories in which a a suspect’s name or family history was hidden deep in the text or reporting that ignored details provided by witnesses, such as whether attackers shouted religious references or asked victims if they were Muslims.

At this point -- perhaps after waves of street-level violence in Europe and elsewhere -- reporters have gone back to writing basic stories. That doesn’t mean that potential links to radicalized forms of Islam dominate the headlines and the tops of news reports. It does mean that essential facts are covered and, often, they are linked to human details that help them make sense.

Consider the New York Times second-day feature story about the man arrested -- after a gun battle with police -- following the disturbing series of attacks in and around New York City. Just look at the complex matrix of materials at the very top of this story.

He presided behind the counter of a storefront New Jersey fried chicken restaurant, making his home with his family in an apartment above it. To some of his friends, Ahmad Khan Rahami was known as Mad, an abridgment of his name rather than a suggestion of his manner, and they liked that he gave them free food when they were short on money.


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Thousands of strangers help an 89-year-old Popsicle vendor — surely there's no holy ghost?

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Grab a tissue.

This story — if somehow you've missed it — will warm your heart.

It's about thousands of strangers moved to make a better life for an 89-year-old Popsicle vendor in Chicago.

The basic details via NPR:

It was just a glimpse, but the scene spoke volumes — and started a push for help. Joel Cervantes Macias was struck by the sight of an elderly man pushing his cart of frozen treats on Chicago's 26th Street, so he took a photo. That was last week; as of Monday afternoon, Macias had raised more than $165,000 to help a stranger.
"It broke my heart seeing this man that should be enjoying retirement still working at this age," Macias wrote on a Go Fund Me page he set up for the 89-year-old vendor, Fidencio Sanchez. "I had to pull over and took this picture. I then bought 20 paletas and gave him a $50 and said may God bless him and drove away."
After posting a picture of Sanchez on Facebook, Macias quickly learned that others had the same response to seeing the man bent over to push his cart full of paletas, the traditional Mexican frozen treats. Many who commented wanted to know how they could help the man — and one of them, Joe Loera, suggested the Go Fund Me page.

As of the moment I'm typing this, the amount raised stands at $328,500 given by more than 15,000 people. Wow!

But perhaps I should get to the point of this post: One of the occupational hazards of writing for GetReligion is that you start looking for ghosts everywhere.

So ... is there a holy ghost here? Is there a religion angle in a bunch of strangers donating money to help an old man? Maybe. 


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Are Christians paying enough attention to religious-liberty issues for Muslims?

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Are Christians paying enough attention to religious-liberty issues for Muslims?

At the end of the Obama era, conservative U.S. Christians are expressing more worries about their religious liberties than they have for a very long time.

Yet devout Muslims face their own challenges. So journalists might ask Christian strategists whether these rival religions might unite on future legal confrontations and, right now, whether they support Muslims on, say, NIMBY disputes against mosques, while also asking Muslim leaders about Christians’ concerns.

As Christianity Today magazine editorializes in the June issue, the U.S. “will be stronger if people of faith -- not just of Christian faith -- are free to teach and enact their beliefs in the public square without fear of discrimination or punishment by the government.” 

This story theme is brought to mind by two simultaneous news items.

On May 24 the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a federal bias complaint about Muslim workers at Wisconsin’s Ariens Company, which makes snow blowers and lawn mowers. Christian Science Monitor reportage said Ariens granted two daily breaks from the assembly line for required Muslim prayer times but some workers needed three. After negotiations fizzled, the company fired seven Muslims and 14 others quit.

On May 25, the education board for Switzerland’s Basel canton, with teacher’s union support, rejected appeals to exempt Muslim students from the expected daily shaking of teachers’ hands out of respect. The New York Times said the board acknowledged that strict Muslims believe that after puberty they shouldn’t touch someone of the opposite sex except for close relatives, but hand-shaking doesn’t “involve the central tenets of Islam.”

Both incidents show ignorance of, or lack of respect toward, Islam.

Since 1997, CAIR has published pamphlets by Mohamed Nimer of American University that inform schools, employers and medical facilities about the Muslim view of practical issues, for instance:


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And in the end, the #hatecake hoax failed to go viral (So what about the pastor's church?)

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So, for those of you who keep sending me links: Yes, I heard that the Rev. Jordan Brown of Austin recently announced that his #hatecake lawsuit against Whole Foods was a hoax.

Well, that wasn't exactly what he said. Hold that thought.

Now, I will admit that I didn't see that hoax story when it went viral on social media -- because it didn't go viral on social media (like the earlier story in which Brown made his accusations). This lack of social-media activity is one of two angles in the story that still interest me.

Wait, maybe this story didn't trend on Facebook the second time around because. ... Oh well, nevermind.

Looking at the small amount of coverage this story received, the Austin American-Statesman report was rather interesting because of what it didn't come right out and say. Take that headline for example: "Pastor to drop lawsuit against Whole Foods over anti-gay slur on cake."

So why is he dropping his lawsuit?

The man who accused Whole Foods Market of writing a homophobic slur on a cake will drop a lawsuit against the grocery chain.

“The company did nothing wrong,” Jordan Brown, a pastor of a small Austin church, said in a statement. “I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story.”


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After the hate-cake blitz: It may be time for reporters to visit the Church of Open Doors

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Let's pause, for a moment, and set aside in-depth discussions of Whole Foods security-camera footage and the strategic location of UPC labels.

Ditto for the zoomed-in analysis of high-definition photos that may show clashing colors in cake icing and the width of the letters on top of what is currently America's most controversial "Love Wins" cake.

There is also the irony that this story is unfolding in the people's republic of Austin, which is both the official capital of the state of Texas and the proudly weird Mecca of folks who want to live in Texas, without really living in Texas.

What I want to do is meditate, for a moment, on the difficulty of covering totally independent, nondenominational churches. During the blitz of hate-cake coverage yesterday, very few journalists paused to ask any questions about the Austin pastor at the center of this controversy and his "church plant," the Church of Open Doors.

One of the convenient things about covering large religious institutions, and religious denominations in particular, is that they offer reporters a chance to verify key facts when a minister and/or a congregation hits the headlines, for positive or negative reasons.

This basic reporting work is harder to do with independent congregations (and there are thousands of them and that number is rising all the time). Right now, it's clear that hardly anyone knows much of anything about the Rev. Jordan Brown and his flock. And let me ask again: Why do so many journalists decline to use the normal Associated Press style -- "the Rev." -- when dealing with African-American pastors?

There is Facebook, of course, where one can learn, in addition to the fact that 27 people have visited, that the church's slogan is: "We've taken tradition and religious doctrine and thrown them out the window."


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