If I was a headline writer in a major newsroom right now, looking at the tsunami of social media and news reports about the dynamic duo of Pope Francis and Billionaire Donald Trump, I would be very worried about writing something definitive that contained the article "a."

What am I talking about?

Let's take some of the early headlines on this showdown in the public square. The New York Times, in a very typical wording, offered: "Pope Francis Suggests Donald Trump Is ‘Not Christian’."

An early Reuters report offered this headline: "Pope says Trump 'not Christian' in views, plans over immigration."

Would it have been different if these early headlines – with a telltale "a" – had reported that the pope said "Trump is 'not A Christian' " because of his views on immigration and the Mexico-United States border?

In other words, was the pope making a judgment on the state of the GOP candidate's SOUL or stating that he believes Trump is not behaving like a Christian? This is picky, yes. But it's a crucial point.

That Reuters' report, for example offered this summary right up top:

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is "not Christian" because of his views on immigration, Pope Francis said on his way back to Rome from Mexico.

Every week or two – either in private emails, on Twitter or perhaps in our comments pages – I get involved in a debate with a reader about an issue that's at the heart of GetReligion's work. The hook is usually a post in which the press, when covering a controversial issue, has focused almost all of it its attention on the views of one side of the argument while demoting the other side to one or two lines of type, usually shallow, dull information drawn from a website or press release.

The reader, in effect, is defending what we call "Kellerism" – click here for a refresher on that term – and says that there is no need to give equal play to the voices on both sides because it is already obvious who is right and who is wrong. The reader says that GetReligion is biased because we still think there is a debate to be covered (think Indiana), while we believe that it's crucial to treat people on both sides of these debates with respect and cover their views as accurately as possible.

My slogan, shared with students down the years: Report unto others as you would want them to report unto you.

This cuts against a popular "New Journalism" theory from the late '60s and the '70s arguing that balance, fairness and professional standards linked to the word "objectivity" are false newsroom gods and that journalists should call the truth the truth and move on. Some may remember a minor dust-up a few years ago when a powerful news consumer seemed to affirm this "false balance" thesis in a New York Times story:

As president, however, he has come to believe the news media have had a role in frustrating his ambitions to change the terms of the country’s political discussion. ...

Privately and publicly, Mr. Obama has articulated what he sees as two overarching problems: coverage that focuses on political winners and losers rather than substance; and a “false balance,” in which two opposing sides are given equal weight regardless of the facts.

This brings us, believe it or not, to our own Bobby Ross Jr. and his much-discussed (and trolled) post on the state of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's soul.

Crucial missing 'a' in this debate: Did Pope Francis judge Trump's soul or his behavior?

Bizarre Kellerism debate: Was Bobby Ross Jr. calling for bias in favor of Jeffrey Dahmer?