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You might consider Associated Press reporter Tom Breen to be the anti-William Lobdell. Breen recently told me he eventually became a weekly Mass attendee after educating himself on the Catholic abuse scandals for his journalism job. His story is quite the opposite from Lobdell, whose work on the religion beat at the Los Angeles Times caused him to drop his faith and write Losing My Religion.
A story this week in The Age, Melbourne’s major daily newspaper, leaves me puzzled. I am not sure what the paper’s religion editor, Barney Zwartz is doing in his article “Ex-nun a cardinal sinner in the mind of the church“. Read at one level, it c0uld be a silly puff piece. Yet there are hints the story could have a deeper meaning–wheels within wheels–where The Age‘s editorial voice is heard by its allowing the subject to impeach herself.
It’s a National Football League Sunday, so that usually means that it’s time for another Godtalk in sports segment.
Journalists tend to love survey research since it often confirms or rejects their suspicions about trends they more casually observe. But reading through data and spotting the significant trends can get tedious, or–worse–journalists can misunderstand the data.
GetReligion co-founder Doug LeBlanc notified us of this absolutely fascinating piece by Terri Gross for NPR’s Fresh Air. It runs about 45 minutes or so and goes through a new documentary called The Interrupters. The documentary was done by Steve James, who also directed the fantastic Hoop Dreams.
As several media outlets consider the move towards nonprofit journalism, Religion News Service recently took the plunge with a $3.5 million three-year grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. RNS, the only nonreligious service covering religion and ethics exclusively, becomes a nonprofit tomorrow under Religion News LLC.*, a new parent company over Religion Newswriters Association.
As a journalism professor, one of the toughest challenges that I face is helping students learn how to avoid what I call “buried pronoun disease.”
Maybe it’s her flaming breasts or her telephone, but some reporters seem slightly obsessed with Lady Gaga. Leave it to a British newspaper to use religion to snark its way through a profile of the pop star.
