I'm filing this edition of Friday Five from Provo, Utah, where I've spent the week attending — and speaking on a few panels — at Brigham Young University's Religious Freedom Annual Review.
In case you missed it Thursday (and based on our analytics, most of you did), GetReligion editor Terry Mattingly and I were part of a diverse group of journalists and attorneys who spoke on "Getting It Right, Media Coverage of Religion Freedom."
Check out my post to watch a video of that presentation, which includes The Atlantic religion journalism superstar Emma Green and other experts. As a bonus, you can see my Twitter thread that includes tmatt's "Seven Deadly Sins of the Religion Beat."
Now, let's dive into the Friday Five:
1. Religion story of the week: The controversy over the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border is the easy choice this week.
Tennessee religion writer Holly Meyer, writing for The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, produced a compelling piece on ministry leaders who say the Bible compels their immigration work.
For more links and analysis, see our earlier posts headlined "Horror on the border: Some journalists starting to spot old cracks in Trump's support" and "Seven can't-miss takes on use of Romans 13 to defend policy on separating immigrant families."
2. Most popular GetReligion post: Julia Duin's Thursday post on "The scandal of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and why no major media outed him" quickly went viral — and rightly so. In our No. 1 post of the week, Duin gives some crucial, behind-the-scenes details based on her own years of digging into the McCarrick case.
Another viral GetReligion post this week, this one by tmatt: "Chris Pratt uses MTV as pulpit for his faith: Were his 'nine rules for living' news or not?"
3. Guilt folder fodder (and more): I don't think we've mentioned this survey yet, but as I mentioned, I've been busy in Utah this week.
In any case, Kevin Loker of the American Press Institute points us to an interesting survey on
"Levels of trust and how Americans feel about the fairness and accuracy of the press."
"As part of the study, we asked how accurate people think news coverage is about a few different issues and several different segments of the population," Loker said. "For example, both the U.S. public and journalists think issues around religion aren't covered all that accurately."
4. Shameless plug: Our hearts ache for Sarah Pulliam Bailey, our former GetReligion colleague and now a national religion writer and editor of Acts of Faith for the Washington Post.
Her baby girl, whom she and her husband, Jason, named Juliet Marie, died shortly before Sarah delivered her Sunday.
You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers, Sarah.
5. Final thought: Eric Metaxas has been a big supporter of GetReligion, often retweeting posts from our site.
Congrats to him on his new book on Bob the Tomato! Seriously, you know you've hit the big time when The Babylon Bee is writing satire pieces about you.