Law & Order

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Surprise! Pro-life women planning to join March for Life get front-page news coverage

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Hey, this is a surprise.

Pro-life women planning to join this week's March for Life in Washington, D.C., got front-page news coverage in the Detroit Free Press.

Why's it a surprise?

If you're a regular GetReligion reader, you don't need to ask: We've pointed out a time or two — or a thousand — that news stories heavily favoring the pro-choice side are a longstanding and indisputable problem. If you somehow missed it previously, check out the classic 1990 Los Angeles Times series — written by the late David Shaw — that exposed rampant news media bias against abortion opponents. 

So yes, it's unusual to see a Page 1 story in a major metropolitan daily that focuses on the perspective of the pro-life side. But that's exactly what the Free Press provides — quoting five pro-life advocates, including four women. (Amazingly, this is my second post in the last week-plus praising a mainstream news story on the abortion issue.)

Back to the Detroit story: Let's start with the lede:

While millions of women marched last weekend for equal rights around the world, many others sat on the sidelines.
They felt excluded from the Women's March on Washington because of one tenet: Its pro-abortion rights platform.
But this week, it's their turn.

The wording of the next paragraph gives me a little pause. But maybe it's just me:


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Victim's blood-stained Bible 'reminds me of the blood Jesus shed for me and you, Dylann Roof'

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Wow.

So powerful.

That's the only way to describe the lede on today's front-page Post and Courier story on victim impact statements to Dylann Roof, the condemned gunman in the Emanuel AME church massacre:

Clutching the blood-stained Bible she had with her when Dylann Roof executed nine family and friends around her, Felicia Sanders told the self-avowed white supremacist in court Wednesday that she still forgives him for his actions. They have scarred her life but haven't shaken her faith.
Addressing Roof the day after a jury sentenced him to death, Sanders said the mass shooting that killed nine black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in June 2015 has left her unable to hear a balloon pop or an acorn fall without being startled. She can no longer shut her eyes when she prays.
But she will carry on, she told him, and continue to follow the words of God still clear in the battered Bible she cherishes.
"I brought my Bible to the courtroom ... shot up," she said. "It reminds me of the blood Jesus shed for me and you, Dylann Roof."
Sanders, who lost her son Tywanza and her aunt Susie Jackson in the shooting, told Roof that when she looks at him she sees "someone who is cold, who is lost, who the devil has come back to reclaim." 

As many times as I've praised the Charleston, S.C., daily's coverage of the massacre and its aftermath — most recently on Wednesday — I know I sound like a broken record.

But the latest story by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes and her Post and Courier colleagues is again filled with relevant, compelling religious details such as these:


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As Emanuel AME gunman gets death, looking for faith — and finding it — on victims' side

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It's impossible to tell the story of the Emanuel AME church massacre without a huge dose of faith.

All along, we at GetReligion have praised the unsurpassed local coverage of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes and her colleagues with the Post and Courier, the daily newspaper in Charleston, S.C.

In the wake of gunman Dylann Roof receiving a federal death sentence Tuesday, we again point readers to Hawes & Co.'s banner coverage of the decision.

But I also want to call special attention to a national story on Roof's sentencing, via the New York Times: 

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann S. Roof, the unrepentant and inscrutable white supremacist who killed nine African-American churchgoers in a brazen racial rampage almost 19 months ago, an outburst of extremist violence that shocked the nation, was condemned to death by a federal jury on Tuesday.
The jury of nine whites and three blacks, who last month found Mr. Roof guilty of 33 counts for the attack at this city’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, returned their unanimous verdict after about three hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of a heart-rending and often legally confounding trial.

The Times' story is full of strong and appropriate religion content, including this reaction:


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In Bible Belt, after massacre in a church, is executing Dylann Roof a 'security' question?

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Hey journalists. Have you ever watched the local news coverage of a news event in which you -- as a citizen, as opposed to being there as a reporter -- were an active participant?

This has happened to me a few times, primarily when my own local church gets involved in some kind of cause. That's what happened long ago in Charlotte when I took part in a midnight prayer vigil in opposition to North Carolina's use of the death penalty. Frequent readers of this blog over the years are probably aware that I am totally opposed to the death penalty, just as I am opposed to abortion and euthanasia.

This particular event in my past provides the background for my comments on the Washington Post story about the death penalty and the Dylann Roof case down in South Carolina. The headline: "What to expect as prosecutors try to persuade jurors to sentence Dylann Roof to death." 

This story ran, for some reason, under a "National Security" header.

Now, our own Bobby Ross Jr. has tons lots of critiques of media coverage linked to the role that religious faith -- especially concepts of grace and forgiveness -- have played in events surrounding this crime and its aftermath. Click here, please, to look through some of that. It's really hard to cover stories linked to the death penalty without getting into religious territory. This is especially true in the American heartland.

This brings me back to that midnight prayer vigil in Charlotte, which took place in an Episcopal church near downtown. The church sanctuary and nave were dark -- candles only, except for a reader's light on the pulpit -- when the television crew entered. People were praying silently and then, every 10 minutes or so, there would be readings from scripture.

In that era, portable light rigs for television cameras were really outrageous. Then the lights were on the camera guy made him look like an approaching UFO as he walked -- I am not joking -- down the center aisle filming people praying in the candlelight. He kept going until he was past the pulpit and up near the altar, shining those glaring lights back into everyone's eyes during a Bible reading.

People were rather upset. There we were on our knees praying for the state not to use the death penalty and, well, we pretty much wanted to kill that camera guy with a barrage of prayerbooks.


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Ask a few more questions? Vandals take some shots at Russian church here in USA

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I realize that this recent news report out of Georgia is probably not a big deal.

Journalists had little cause to ask a few questions that some might consider a bit paranoid. After all, we are talking about bullet holes in a church, not a mosque.

Plus, Georgia is way down in Bible Belt country. There are lots of people down there with guns, to be sure, but not many who are likely to be violently angry about the many, many negative news headlines (think Syria, wiretaps, Vladimir Putin, etc.) linked to Russia.

There is some chance that those crazy Southerners where just, you know, running around shooting guns in the air, because they do things like that. However, these maybe-random shots happened as Christmas -- using the Gregorian date, Dec. 25th -- was approaching, as opposed to taking place during the often wild festivities of New Year's Eve.

So here is what happened, to cut to the chase. This short, short story -- "Church finds bullet holes through building, welcome sign" -- comes from the Fox 5 channel:

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. -- Forsyth County deputies are searching for the vandals who shot a church’s sign and house of worship.
“I hope it’s teenagers. I don’t see it being something more than that, it would be more troubling,” said Father Eugene Antonov of the Joy of All Who Sorrow Russian Orthodox Church.
Church members discovered multiple bullet holes through walls of their house of worship under construction, the windows and the front welcome sign.


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Perfectly valid (even if rather bizarre) Christmas wars stories in Texas and South Florida

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Not all Christmas wars stories are created equal.

The most important ones have something to do with religious believers of all kinds attempting to carve out some space in what is usually called the "public square." We're talking about government or business controlled environments ranging from public schools to shopping malls, from county court house lawns to public parks.

In other words, we're talking about battles over what the Peanuts character Linus can or cannot say in a public-school holiday musical or in a poster about such an event. Here is a case in point, care of The Washington Post, complete with the perfectly normal term religious liberty being wrapped in scare quotes. You know the drill. Let's start with Charlie Brown asking, "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”

Linus, his thumb-sucking and blanket-toting best friend, speaks up.
“Sure, Charlie Brown,” he says. “I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”
Then the character recites a lengthy Bible passage, from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, when angels descend upon the flock-tending shepherds to announce the birth of baby Jesus.
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord,” Linus says. “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
It is that quote, extracted from the special’s most overtly Christian scene, that has thrust a Texas middle school nurse’s aide, the school district she works for and the state attorney general into a very public -- and unseasonably bitter -- debate over what “religious liberty” means inside the walls of the state’s public schools.

You can almost write the rest of this story yourself, can't you? 

The key, this time, is that the story actually includes large chunks of material about some of the laws that frame this debate, such as the Merry Christmas Law in Texas that was passed to clarify some U.S. Supreme Court material on such matters.


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After Dylann Roof verdict, best stories aren't about the killer — but resilient survivors

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As I noted earlier this week, a big part of me would be happy never to see Dylann Roof's name in print again. Or hear it on the TV news.

But stories about the victims and survivors of last year's rampage that claimed nine lives at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C? I could read those all day — as long as I had a box of tissues handy.

That's why — after a federal jury found Roof guilty on all 33 counts Thursday — my favorite verdict stories were the ones that focused not on Roof but the victims.

A year and a half after the church slaughter, Emanuel AME's demonstrations of faith and forgiveness still resonate in a powerful way. More on that in a moment.

As background: Major news organizations — from The Associated Press to Reuters to the Washington Post — all covered the jury's conviction of Roof. No surprise there.

However, victims were secondary in most of these straight-news reports. I didn't see any survivors or victims' loved ones quoted in the Los Angeles Times' story (although readers did learn up high that Roof wore a "blue cable-knit sweater" as the verdicts were read). Perhaps I missed a sidebar.

But besides its main report, the New York Times had a gripping narrative on "Congregants’ Quiet Agony at the Dylann Roof Trial."

Wow, this is worthwhile reading, full of precise detail and real human emotion:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Each morning they flowed into Courtroom Six, escorted by federal officials from a holding room reserved for survivors and families of the victims. The accused, Dylann S. Roof, never turned from the end of the defense table to acknowledge the parents, widows and widowers, children, grandchildren and fellow congregants of the nine African-Americans he confessed to killing in June 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Felicia Sanders, who survived the rampage but lost her son and her aunt, watched from the first of six rows of wooden benches, along with her husband, Tyrone. The Rev. Eric S. C. Manning, who now inhabits the office once occupied by the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, who was among those killed, sat one row back. The Rev. Anthony B. Thompson, whose wife, Myra, led the evening Bible study that Mr. Roof joined, always took his place in the fifth row, along with John Pinckney, the former pastor’s father.


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'Just who is Dylann Roof?': Do we really need to know what makes a mass murderer tick?

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Jennifer Berry Hawes has an incredibly difficult job. I don't envy her.

Hawes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., is covering the trial of Dylann Roof, who confessed to last year's mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church.

Regular GetReligion readers will recall that we repeatedly have praised Hawes — a former full-time Godbeat pro — for her reporting on the Emanuel AME aftermath. We have used adjectives such as "amazing" and "powerful" to describe her stories. 

But I can't say that I "enjoyed" her front-page Sunday story on Roof.

In the story, Hawes delves into this question:

Just who is Dylann Roof?

My immediate thought: Do we really want to know?

Of course, the journalist in me recognizes that such stories are necessary and important. But there's a part of me that would be happy never to see Roof's name in print again. Or hear it on the TV news.

In a post on a different shooting rampage last year, I wrote:


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Baltimore Sun finds the faith angle in the Baptist officer ensnared in Freddie Gray case

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The Baltimore Sun is no longer the dead-tree-pulp newspaper that lands in my front yard each morning. Thus, logically enough, there has been a sharp decline in the number of Sun stories that show up here on GetReligion.

Also, the newspaper's website features a numbing array of intrusive auto-cue forms of advertising, so sane readers would only go there when there are no other options. However, my many Charm City-area friends still let me know, from time to time, when something interesting shows up.

In this case, the Sun recently offered an in-depth profile of Alicia White, the only female officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, the infamous case that still hangs over life in Baltimore like smoke from burning urban neighborhoods. This was a big story for one simple reason, as stated in the headline: "Baltimore Police Officer Alicia White, charged in Freddie Gray case, becomes the first to speak out."

The surprise in this story is that it truly explores the human side of this woman, as well as the legal and political angles of the story. As is often the case among public servants in Baltimore's African-American community, that led the reporters into spiritual territory.

Right from the get-go, the story stresses that this case has had painful consequences for White as a person and as an officer.

For the past 18 months, her co-defendants either went to trial or were called to the stand to testify while she awaited her own trial. Out of public view, White spent much of the time grappling with crippling anxiety, and at one point was rushed to a hospital. The stress led her and her fiance to call off their engagement, and she spent months unemployed. Then, in July, all charges were dropped.

In addition to the interview material from White, it's clear that the Sun team did extensive background work in the community, digging into her life and work. That's where her educational background and church ties show up.

In other words, her Christian faith was and is part of her identity and, in the past, it affected her actions. Thus, it's part of the story.


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