If you want a play-by-play of Oral Roberts’s life, look no further than Bill Sherman of the Tulsa World. Sherman’s piece was one of the first posted when news first broke that Roberts had died and is jam packed with Roberts’s chronology. For example, I didn’t know this piece of info: “The O.W. Coburn School of Law opened in 1979, and in 1985 regents voted to give the school to CBN University–now Regent University–in Virginia Beach, Va.”
Bullying Rick Warren
The roles of Newsweek and its religion reporter Lisa Miller’s as reporter (conveyor of information) and pundit (advocacy) have been blurred for a while now. One minute, Miller is reporting on a story, the next, she’s offering her personal opinion on it.
The NYT's Jewspotting
I wish Brad Greenberg would rise from the depths of law school finals because I would love to read his take on a recent New York Times piece “Yes, Miky, There Are Rabbis in Montana.”
With God on Obama’s side (maybe)
You would think that if the Los Angeles Times put two reporters on a story, they would make a little effort to pick up the phone. Unfortunately, this was not the case on a recent piece titled “Obama administration has religion on its side.” That’s quite the exaggeration, considering 37 percent of Americans polled said they see President Obama as religion-friendly. That’s not a majority, is it? So why do the reporters make it seem like Obama has captured all religious voters? I can forgive a lame headline once in a while since I hear the copy editor side from my husband, but the story reads like a press release for the administration.
Area Christians try to be hip
Some of my favorite headlines from The Onion are ones about your average Joe as if it’s a big deal, like “Area Man Consults Internet Whenever Possible” or “Local Girlfriend Always Wants To Do Stuff.”
Bob Casey: Like father like son?
Bob Casey Jr. must be really irritated with father-son comparisons by now. In 1992, the Democratic Party denied a speaking slot to his father, then-Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey Sr., at the national convention. Casey Jr. spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention but merely mentioned his “honest disagreement” with President Obama on abortion.
Fishing for an evangelical trend
<a href=It’s odd to see some of your former classmates quoted in The New York Times as if they are newsworthy. Don’t get me wrong–many of them are doing cool and interesting things. Samuel G. Freedman profiles one of these classmates in a nice, upbeat story to show how young evangelicals are taking up interests in climate change, AIDS and poverty in his On Religion column for the Times.
Those spooky evangelical churches
Three in one
It’s not every day you read a story where the reporter describes the same person as a Jehovah’s Witness, a fundamentalist and an evangelical.