Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
It’s really hard to ignore religion when it comes to death. Those questions of what happens to us when we die often become even more heightened during the funeral, reflection and mourning periods.
Before the 2008 election, there was a lot of ink spilled on the Democratic outreach to religious voters, but this time, the cycle seems more focused on the tea party. Part of the shift is probably due to the state of the economy and current horse race coverage on potential Republican candidates, but maybe the media cycle just needs to jump to the next exciting group to fuel election content.
Ted Haggard might be the story that never dies. Every few months, it seems, the family does something to capture reporters’ attention, whether it’s a media appearance or building their ministry. Julia Duin captured this idea on the Washington Post‘s Under God blog with the headline “How ‘scandalous’ is Ted Haggard now?”
The week I moved to the Green Bay area, the ushers at church handed us kitchen magnets listing the Packers schedules with a little plug for the men’s ministry. That was when I realized that sports and religion blend quite frequently here in cheese town.
We spend a lot of time here emphasizing the importance of considering religion when journalists cover a beat (ghost anyone?). But there are reporters out there who dig for and pounce on those religion angles, either in national news stories, denominational news or maybe in an entrepreneurial story.
Some media outlets are catching on to the fact that the new Miss America was homeschooled for most of her life, so I joked earlier that perhaps the Miss America pageant would become the next National Spelling Bee competition for homeschoolers. Between bikinis and ball gowns, though, pageants are probably a far cry from spelling bees (remember this fantastic CNN interview?).
Americans received a nice little history lesson this week, thanks to Sarah Palin’s video reaction to the shooting in Arizona. We were quickly informed by just about every national news outlet that the “blood libel” is generally used to historically mean the accusations that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals.
Earlier this week, Mollie suggested that it’s a good time to cover religious liberty questions, as we’ve seen continual reports of violence in Egypt, Iraq and other countries.
As the media continues to feed us play-by-play updates from Arizona’s shootings, we’re reading about the endless calls to civility, the confusing ties to Sarah Palin and the (predictable?) reaction from Westboro, we’re seeing some further religion coverage within profiles of some of the victims.
