Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Too frequently in print journalism, headline-induced spin ruins an otherwise solid news article. Such seems to be the case in this New York Times article on the alleged “return” of indulgences.
A few years ago, a “wardrobe malfunction” grabbed the country’s attention during the nation’s annual celebration of consumerism and marketing (and in-between, there were some violent expressions of athleticism). Amongst this year’s Super Bowl commercials, marketers for a certain Internet domain registrar and Web hosting company grabbed its fair share of attention by producing an ad that was deemed “the most watched commercial among TiVo users.”
It seems like just a few months ago that I was compiling my list of top stories from the previous year. Regardless of how quickly I would like to see time fly by, what follows is my summary from the past year and a celebration of this blog’s five years in existence.
Art Stricklin of Baptist Press had an excellent profile of the faith of Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin earlier this week. Unfortunately, the article seems to be one of the only works of print journalism to be on top of Tomlin’s life-story of faith.
When the President of the United States appoints an official to lead, say, the Department of Health and Human Services, reporters generally tell their readers or viewers what that person believes about issues relating to health. The same is generally true for positions such as Attorney General or any other position that has some level of autonomy from the chief executive.
Newspaper sports columnists around the world jumped on an “incident” between two Texas schools involving a 100-0 blowout as a juicy opportunity to explore the issues surrounding youth athletic competition (see here, here, here, here and here). Aside from this well-reported ESPN.com piece by Jeff Miller on the history of high school blowouts, Barry Horn of The Dallas Morning News has provided much of the reporting muscle in this story that combines youth athletics, competitive values and Christian educational institutions.
If anyone needs any evidence that inaugurations are for the most part all about pomp and circumstance, see The Chicago Tribune‘s home page the day after the big event. The top of the “most read list” was an article about who made Michelle Obama’s dresses. Just below the front page’s top news story (“Obama freezes top-pay, adds ethic rules”) were two columns of articles — the first titled “fashion” and the second titled “The reaction.”
Some prayers and sermons are given more news value than others. For example, the fact that HBO did not broadcast Bishop V. Gene Robinson’s prayer on Sunday made a rather significant news ripple. However, a CNN interview with Colin Powell received priority over the mealtime prayer of Rear Admiral Barry C. Black (Ret.), U.S. Senate Chaplain, before Tuesday’s rather significant congressional luncheon with President Obama.
The following bit of local news may not be the best evidence of a declining newspaper industry, or the media’s overall challenges in covering religion, but I must say a word about The Indianapolis Star‘s decisions to cut the short prayer on page A2 next to the chuckle and horoscope and then bring it back a couple of weeks later.
