I am sorry for the delay on this think piece from The Forward, since really should have run during the impeachment proceedings. However, I never thought of this as a piece about Donald Trump or any of his pack.
No, I thought GetReligion readers would want to see this because it was written by Mark Pinsky, the veteran religion-beat pro best known for his work in the heavily evangelical world that surrounds Orlando.
Pinsky is also the author of a book that I recommend when asked one of the questions that I hear all the time. That question: What is the best book to use in a college or university level course about covering religion news?
Well, of course I am going to recommend this project from my friends and former colleagues linked to The Media Project: “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion.” It includes my essay on religion-beat strategies for editors and publishers, “Getting Religion in the Newsroom.”
But there really isn’t a religion-beat 101 book, a kind of manual for professionals who are starting the process of reading themselves up to speed on the myriad subjects, movements and vocabularies needed to cover this complex subject.
But there is a book that I recommend that does a great job of explaining WHY reporters need to take the challenges of this beat seriously and why they should strive to get inside the beliefs and worldviews of the believers they need to cover. That book is Mark Pinksy’s small volume entitled, “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.”
This brings us to the weekend think piece, that recent Forward feature that ran with this headline: “Trump Impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow says ‘I’ve never felt not Jewish.’ “
Why did Pinsky land this exclusive interview?
Sekulow said the interview with the Forward was the only one he planned to do ahead of the impeachment trial, and that he agreed to do it because I have been writing about him on and off for more than a quarter century — and because his great-uncle, Sonya Sekular, worked for the Forward in the 1940s, Sekulow said.