Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
When I first read that journalist Austin Tice had gone missing from Syria after August 11, I was worried about how the story would play out. The good news is that we have an update and he appears to be alive. But the plot really thickens from there.
What’s the world coming from if you can’t cater to Saudia Arabian consumers by airbrushing all women out of pictures in your catalog? Swedish furniture giant IKEA did that and they’re hearing it from angry women and human rights activists. Women: can’t have them in your fancy catalog, can’t airbrush them out of existence.
Last week we looked at the story about Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid saying Mitt Romney was a bad Mormon. A reporter asked me if Mormons think Harry Reid is a bad Mormon. I’m not Mormon but I asked a few friends who are and even the ones who really loathe his politics were dismissive of the question. One told me that she’d worshiped in Reid’s ward and that nobody seemed to make a big deal about it.
In July, we looked at some of the media coverage of a priest who was removed from his parish by Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville, Illinois. He wasn’t just removed from his parish. Braxton also removed his faculties. There were some problems with the previous story dealing with how those faculties were characterized and what, exactly, were his violations. We knew that he was improvising portions of the mass but we didn’t get specifics.
Never a dull moment on the religion news beat. And the latest clash is a full-on battle over blasphemy laws. There’s been a fair amount of coverage. Here’s a Washington Post story headlined “Egyptâs President Morsi tells U.N.: Insults to Muhammad âunacceptableâ.” One thing I liked about the piece was how it gave three full paragraphs of quotes to substantiate this, the fourth paragraph:
During the political conventions a few weeks ago, we commented on some disparate coverage of pro-life Democrats and pro-life Republicans. Let’s revisit one aspect of that.
It is never news when a Huffington Post blogger says that Mitt Romney, or any other Republican candidate, is beyond the pale. One of the times that happened last week, it involved a Democrat Mormon saying that he was upset with Romney. Unlike most criticism of Romney emanating from the illustrious pixels of the HuffPost, though, this article went after Romney as a Mormon.
The Orange County Register has a story headlined “Former Crystal Cathedral pastor defaults on home.” It’s all about how the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, former senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral and the son of its founder the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, is part of the housing crash:
A few months ago we looked at a survey that showed that the vast majority of Americans have no idea whatsoever what percentage of the population is gay.
