In The New York Times, reporter Jan Hoffman found an ingenious angle on an old story — a political candidate’s self-image.
Haunted Palin story
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Failing to explain Palin's faith
Two weeks ago, I criticized national magazines’ coverage of Sarah Palin’s faith for providing more facts than explanations. Today I criticize Newsweek‘s cover story about Palin for … providing more facts than explanations. As you can see, I am breaking new intellectual ground!
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Why do they hate us?
Give credit to Michael Slackman and Nadim Audi of The New York Times. For their story about Egyptians’ perceptions of the 9/11 attacks, the two reporters were not content to flip through their rolodexes and call a bunch of experts. No, they interviewed ordinary Egyptians on the street. The fruits of their shoe-leather reporting were mostly ripe.
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Advance the priest shortage story (please)
For months, I have written about coverage of the Catholic priest shortage in the United States. My standard critique has been about stories’ technique — the reporter’s use of sources, point of view, details, etc. Now my critique is about their content.
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The press goes around
Hundreds of reporters have written about Bristol Palin’s unborn child. Yet few have examined the other unusual child in the Family Palin: Trig, the 4-month-old boy who has Down syndrome.
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Tempting truth about Palin, evangelicals
Amy Sullivan of Time wrote an uncharacteristically unsubstantiated story about Sarah Palin’s possible difficulty in attracting support from moderate and young evangelicals. Usually, Sullivan’s stories are marked by thorough and insightful reporting. This was not one of them.
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Define Catholic social teaching (please)
Give credit to Eric Gorski of the Associated Press. While some reporters don’t get that Catholic prelates are supposed to be able to influence the lives of those in the pews, including their votes at the ballot box, Gorski understands that they can and do.
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Not fully fleshing out death
I dislike criticizing newspapers stories that are well reported, not to mention detailed and interesting.
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More gay-marriage cheerleading
In the spring, I encouraged reporters to write about the California Supreme Court’s decision to redefine marriage from the viewpoint of religious traditionalists and not just religious liberals and seculars. So I was happy to come across a recent story in The Los Angeles Times with the headline of “California churches plan a big push against same-sex marriage.” Finally, I thought, on this issue reporters were getting traditional religion.
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