GetReligion
Thursday, April 03, 2025

Orlando

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Citizen Trump in Orlando, the Sequel: So WHO were the evangelicals in the room?

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The latest news from the campaign trail:

ORLANDO, Fla. — Off-his-rocker Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday addressed a group of 700 generic evangelical pastors with no first or last names, focusing on his problems in Mormon-dominated Utah and saying more quirky things like winning the election may be "the only way I'm going to get to heaven."

OK, I made up that lede.

But my exaggeration is not so far from the truth of how major mainstream media covered The Donald's speech to pastors in Orlando.

Our own tmatt provided a framework yesterday on how to judge coverage of Trump's Florida appearance.

For a fuller understanding of this post, take just a few minutes and read what tmatt wrote in advance, including this:


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Citizen Trump in Orlando: Press must note evangelicals who attend and those who do not

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(Cue: audible sigh)

Do we really have to keep writing about Donald Trump and THE evangelicals? It would appear so, since he is headed to Orlando today to talk to a Florida Pastors and Pews event, organized by the American Renewal Project.

Once again, the team behind this story seems to think that we are dealing with Trump efforts to fire up THE evangelicals and THE "religious conservatives." That's kind of like saying a candidate is reaching out to THE Jews, THE Catholics, THE Muslims, etc.

That won't cut it. It's really crucial for journalists, when covering this kind of event, to give readers some of the details on who is taking part and who is not.

This is especially true for an event in Orlando, which is a hub city for evangelical megachurches and parachurch ministries. The Orlando area – especially the suburbs – is also a very important region in Florida (and thus national) politics, when it comes to gauging evangelical enthusiasm at the polls.

So let's look at the Bloomberg News report that The Miami Herald picked up about Trump's appearance. He is expected to say more about his opposition to the Johnson Amendment, the IRS rule that prohibits churches from endorsing individual political candidates, as opposed to making faith-driven statements about moral and cultural issues in public life.

I'll comment on that issue once we see the press coverage of what Citizen Trump has to say. However, it's important to stress that – as is so often the cases – there is no one evangelical camp on that topic. In fact, some evangelicals would like to see that rule enforced in a more consistent manner, affecting churches on the left as well as the right.

What's the first thing I noticed about how Herald editors handled this Bloomberg News report?


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New York Times offers partial headline about Mateen, ISIS and calls from inside The Pulse

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If you have followed this blog for long, then you have heard your GetReligionistas – in a kind of whiny voice common among offended reporters – stress that reporters do not get to write the headlines that run on top of their stories.

Nevertheless, readers often blame the contents of a headline on the person named in the byline. People who study these kinds of things will tell you that a high percentage of readers only scan the headlines and then skip all but the first few lines of most news stories, if they read that much.

So what's my point? Headlines really matter.

Case in point: I got excited today when I saw the following headline as I worked my way through my morning email summary of the top news in The New York Times. I'm talking about the one that said: "Transcripts of Calls With Orlando Gunman Will Be Released."

That's important news, in light of all of the speculation there was been about the "Why?" part of the "Who, what, when, where, why and how" equation linked to Orlando gunman Omar Mateen. I mean, there are many mysteries about what was happening inside the mind of this sexually conflicted (possibly gay), Muslim with Afghanistan roots who was a registered Democrat and, with his job as a low-level worker in a security firm (that even had ties to the Department of Homeland Security), had no trouble legally purchasing weapons.

This news about the transcripts of the cellphone calls between the police and Mateen – during his rampage inside the gay bar – is crucial. These transcripts would, apparently, give the public a chance to hear the gunmen talking about his actions, even his motives, in his own voice.

The problem with this soft Times headline is that it was missing a crucial word that readers needed to know. Let's see if you can spot it in the lede:


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Gays and Islam: Even after Orlando shooting, many news media skirt the hard questions

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After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, I suggested a story on the verses in the Quran that dealt with killing unbelievers, including how local imams interpret them. My editor hesitated and said, "I'd rather do stories about diversity in the community."

That looks like the attitude among most mainstream media, 15 years later. We know that Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay club, was Muslim and anti-gay. But what exactly does Islam say about homosexuality?

Many mainstream media seem to have been avoiding answering that, even when asking it themselves. They’ve chattered about how he checked Facebook and traded texts with his wife. They say he tried to buy body armor. And of course, they talk about gun control and homophobia.

But few have ventured into the minefield where Muslim communities border homosexuality. And of those that do, most concentrate on LGBT Muslims themselves.

In Florida itself, I could find only one newspaper – my alma mater, the Sun Sentinel – reporting on a "confused, broken community that lies at the intersection of the tragedy," as it calls them. One of its three subjects is college student Hytham Rashid:

There are not a lot of terms to describe gender identity or sexual orientation in Arabic, Rashid said. The word "transgender," for example, translates to "You are like a woman" or "You are like a man," which can be considered offensive, he says.
As a gay Muslim, Rashid says he faces both Islamophobia and homophobia every day. He said in the wake of the Orlando tragedy, he doesn’t feel safe going to memorials and events.
"We can put up our stickers and wave around our rainbow flags in Wilton Manors, but the core issue is, there isn’t a safe space for us," he said.

The Sun Sentinel also imports a statement by the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity that there is "no religious justification or precedent in Islam for mass shootings targeting any population, regardless of identity." But it doesn't look at the Quran or the Hadith (the record of Muhammad's words and deeds). Nor does it ask any leaders of the 15-20 mosques in its circulation area.


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Classic M.Z.: When it comes to Christianity 101, The New York Times flunks out -- again

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Attention: Copy desk at The New York Times

Subject: Reading adult books

To whom it may concern:

I have a journalistic question, a question centering on basic facts about religion, that I would like to ask in light of the following statement that ran in a political report in The Times under the headline, "After Orlando, a Political Divide on Gay Rights Still Stands." Context is important, so here is the complete reference:

... The deep divide over gay rights remains one of the most contentious in American politics. And the murder of 49 people in an Orlando gay club has, in many cases, only exacerbated the anger from Democrats and supporters of gay causes, who are insisting that no amount of warm words or reassuring Twitter posts change the fact that Republicans continue to pursue policies that would limit legal protections for gays and lesbians.
In the weeks leading up to the killings, they pointed out, issues involving gays were boiling over in Congress and in Republican-controlled states around the country. More than 150 pieces of legislation were pending in state legislatures that would restrict rights or legal protections for sexual minorities. A Republican congressman read his colleagues a Bible verse from Romans that calls for the execution of gays. Congress was considering a bill that would allow individuals and businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian couples.

My question: When it comes to the authoritative interpretation of Christian scripture, who has the highest level of authority for the Times, the leaders of Westboro Baptist Church or legions of Christian saints, hierarchs and theologians (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestants) over 2,000 years of church history? Who do you trust more, Pope Francis or the Rev. Fred Phelps?

The answer, to my shock, appears to be – Westboro Baptist. When it comes to St. Paul and the interpretation of his Epistle to the Romans, the Times leadership appears to believe that the tiny circle of Westboro activists represent all of Christendom.

How did the Times leadership reach this decision on such an important theological issue?

Sincerely, Terry Mattingly

*****

My question is sincere.

If you have doubts about this, let me point you toward a work of classic M.Z. Hemingway media criticism over at The Federalist that is currently going viral in social media.


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Why a wounded Orlando survivor begged God to 'take the soul out of my body'

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Powerful.

So, so powerful.

That's the only way to characterize Orlando survivor Patience Carter's description of the hell that she endured at the Pulse nightclub early Sunday.

In a front-page story today, the Los Angeles Times puts readers in the middle of the heartbreaking scene.

The lede from the Times:

ORLANDO, Fla. — As Patience Carter and two friends cowered inside the handicapped bathroom stall, injured and pinned by a crush of bleeding bodies, the gunman who opened fire in the Pulse nightclub kept talking.
“He said, ‘Are there any black people in here?’ I was too afraid to answer,” said Carter, who is African American.
Carter continued: “There was an African American man in the stall with us... he said, ‘Yes, there are about six or seven of us.’ The gunman responded back to him saying that, ‘You know, I don’t have a problem with black people, this is about my country. You guys suffered enough.’”
Carter, a slight 20-year-old NYU student from Philadelphia, had just arrived in Orlando, Fla., for her first night of vacation.
On Tuesday she and others who sought refuge in the side-by-side men’s and women’s restrooms during Sunday’s attack recounted how the gunman barked orders, claimed to have accomplices and laughed during the attack, which took 49 lives.
They also described how those trapped in the restrooms played dead, reached out to police by phone and tried to arrange their escape.

The Associated Press, CBS News and the local Orlando Sentinel are among other news organizations sharing Carter's story.


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After Orlando shooting, Chick-fil-A opens on Sunday to help — did the news media ignore?

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My friend David Duncan texted me and asked:

So is this story true all over Facebook that Chick-fil-A gave free sandwiches and tea to people in the blood donor line but the media didn't cover it? Sounds like a GetReligion story.

If you're not sure what he's talking about, you must not be one of the 400,000-plus people (as of the moment I'm typing this) who have liked or shared this Facebook post by Florida attorney and radio show host Kevin Hayslett.

Hayslett's post from Monday afternoon says, in part:

Chick Fil A has made national news for it’s owners’ stance on gay marriage. Anytime they do something even remotely non-PC, their supposed slip up goes viral. Hash tags pop up all over the place.

So why is that what they have done in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting hasn’t received a single mention on the mainstream new outlets?

It’s probably because people like New York City Mayor, Bill DeBlasio might have to eat crow instead of chicken. DeBlasio has said that Chick Fil A spreads a message of hate.

What exactly did Chick-fil-A — whose owners have made news in recent years for their support of traditional marriage and values — do?

This is what: They prepared fried chicken sandwiches on Sunday:


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Orlando shooting: Florida media scrambling to decide what it was about

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Was it Islamic terrorism? Just regular terrorism? A hate crime? A wake-up call for gay rights and gun control?

Like a dropped glass, the Orlando shooting has already shattered into many stories, less than 48 hours after the event. Activists for various causes have filled in a few details of the tragedy into scripts that seem otherwise pre-written. And many news media have been helping them.

The coverage has been overwhelming – local and national alike – and the cash-strapped newspapers have often borrowed from national news outlets. But here's what jumped out during my look at Florida media.

The Orlando Sentinel has done outstanding -- though not flawless -- coverage, with multiple updates. By 1:02 p.m. Sunday, it had produced an impressive profile of Omar Mateen, named by police as the man who stormed the Pulse nightclub and killed 49 people. Building partly on work by the Washington Post, the profile includes:

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, the 29-year-old gunman accused of killing dozens of people in Orlando on Sunday, was a security guard, the divorced father of a 3-year-old and, in school, someone who acted "dorky."
He also was an extremist whose outspoken interest in terrorism twice put him on the FBI’s radar screen.
On Sunday morning, he became something far larger: a lone gunman who authorities say was responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
He called 911 from outside a gay nightclub just south of downtown Orlando, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, authorities said, then began his assault.

For comparison, check out the Tampa Bay Times' version, which came out at 12:13 p.m. today.

The Sentinel also reveals that Mateen grew up in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and bought two guns legally; worked for a security firm; been investigated by the FBI at least twice since 2013; made reference to the Tsarnaev brothers, the brothers who bombed the 2013 Boston Marathon; and was married for two years to a woman who left because of his abusiveness. All of those elements have become part of the standard narrative in other media.


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What offensive thing did Texas politician say after Orlando, and WHEN did he say it?

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Sadly for my 16-year-old daughter, she inherited her father's level of patience.

When she asks a question, she wants an answer — and she wants it now.

That led to an interesting text exchange between the two of us recently when she saw a Twitter post from me while I did not immediately respond to her.

"Ever heard of scheduled tweets?" I eventually replied. "I was driving."

Scheduled tweets are indeed a thing, but somebody might want to inform the social media universe — including the news media.

While on an island and away from news of Sunday's mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick caused a Twitterstorm with a tweet scheduled days earlier.

Here's how The Associated Press reported the news:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has deleted a tweet quoting the New Testament that he posted after the deadly Orlando nightclub shooting.
Hours after the early Sunday morning shooting at a gay nightclub that left at least 50 people dead, Patrick sent a tweet from his personal account: "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."


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